A group of more than 10,000 amateur astronomers spread out over 85 countries has identified roughly 240,000 galaxies over the last two years.
Now, the Dark Energy Explorers group aims to recruit even more volunteers and take its work to the next level with a project that could shed new light on the mysterious nature of dark energy,To do so, they must help build the most extensive 3D map of the cosmos by using an app that functions surprisingly like the popular dating app Tinder.The research project, called the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment , is based at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory.
The Dark Energy Explorers launched in February 2021. Since then, they have been surveying a region of the sky that includes most of the Big Dipper and is roughly the size of 2,000 full moons. The group's 10,000 volunteers have identified approximately 240,000 galaxies, but that is only about one-tenth of the total number of galaxies they expect to find eventually.
"That's why we need more people," said Karl Gebhardt, a professor of astronomy at UT Austin and project scientist and principal investigator for HETDEX. "If we can get to 100,000 people volunteering, which I think is doable across the world, then we're there in the next year." The scientists behind the initiative, led by UT Austin graduate student Lindsay House, say the help of volunteers allows them to reduce the time they spend on identifying galaxies by up to 90 percent, freeing them up to spend more of their time on the more challenging science required for the project. The project's ultimate goal is to build the largest 3D cosmos map. The focus will be on galaxies in the early universe to help reveal important clues about dark energy.