The SciStarter logo overlaid on an image from deep space.

5 Out-Of-This-World Citizen Science Opportunities

With the arrival of the solstice, the nights are at their shortest, but they’re also nice and warm for summer stargazing and space-related citizen science! Put your eyes to good use with these astronomy projects on SciStarter. You won’t need any special knowledge, or even special tools for most of them! Report night sky streaks from satellites overhead to … Read more “5 Out-Of-This-World Citizen Science Opportunities”

Categories: Featured Projects

These Women Were First to Map the Cosmos. Volunteers are Bringing Their Work to Light

More than 100 years ago, Harvard astronomer Edward Charles Pickering decided he was going to take a picture of the entire night sky. Or, rather, many thousands of pictures, each capturing a tiny rectangle of the universe as seen through a telescope. Today, these photos survive on hundreds of thousands of glass plates at the … Read more “These Women Were First to Map the Cosmos. Volunteers are Bringing Their Work to Light”

Categories: Astronomy & Space

It’s Time to Count the Stars

Wow! Take a look at the map on the Great World Wide Star Count website. The fall campaign started yesterday and already there are oodles of citizen scientists from around the world posting their data. Citizen scientists from China, Australia, India, Kuwait, Egypt, South Africa, the European Union, Canada, United States, and Mexico have gotten involved so far. They are all looking at how bright the stars are overhead to help us get a better understanding of how streetlights, porch lights, car headlights and other nighttime lights affect how we see the stars in the sky. … Read more

Categories: Astronomy & Space, Citizen Science

Be a star: join the international star-hunt!

Have you ever seen the Milky Way from where you live? Most of us have not, and it’s largely due to increased light pollution from outdoor lighting. Light pollution not only wastes billions of dollars a year in energy and money but it causes human sleep disorders and disrupts habits critical to ecology. Globe at … Read more “Be a star: join the international star-hunt!”

Categories: Apps, Astronomy & Space, Computers & Technology, Nature & Outdoors

Look and listen to the cosmos to help space scientists

For those of you sleepless people who want to learn a bit about stars and help scientists at the same time, consider joining the Great World Wide Star Count taking place from October 29 through November 12, 2010. In order to participate, download the star count’s activity guide to determine which constellation you should observe. … Read more “Look and listen to the cosmos to help space scientists”

Categories: Astronomy & Space, Citizen Science, Climate & Weather