Spacewatch

Spacewatch is a collaborative citizen science project that allows volunteers to search for asteroids, comets, and other celestial objects in images taken by the Catalina Sky Survey. The project, hosted on the Zooniverse platform, invites individuals to examine astronomical data and identify potential discoveries by looking for moving objects or unusual features within the provided images. Participants are trained through online tutorials to recognize these phenomena, distinguishing them from artifacts or known objects.

The primary goal of Spacewatch is to augment the efforts of professional astronomers in discovering and tracking Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), which are asteroids and comets whose orbits bring them into close proximity with Earth. By enlisting a large number of volunteers, Spacewatch can process vast amounts of observational data more quickly than would otherwise be possible. This distributed approach helps to identify potentially hazardous objects and contributes to a better understanding of the solar system's composition and evolution.

Since its inception, Spacewatch has been instrumental in the discovery of numerous celestial bodies. The project emphasizes the importance of citizen science in advancing scientific research and fosters a sense of community among its participants. The data analyzed by volunteers is then reviewed by professional astronomers for confirmation, with successful discoverers often credited in scientific publications.