Crowdsourced Astronomy
Kernthese:
I will share how amazing it is to take astronomy to the people and to share the skills we have learnt as astronomers, and to see first hand how it can change the world!
Beschreibung:
Astronomy is entering an era of unprecedented scales. The telescopes are getting bigger and more powerful, which means that the amount of data and what we can do with it has increased exponentially. It also means that there are not enough astronomers for the data out there. Already endless PhD projects can be carried out on archived data only. Citizen science is another way of dealing with that much data and it has grown very much in recent years.
Astronomy has always benefitted from the input and careful observations of amateurs – think just of the number of comets discovered not by professionals – but the internet has changed that and made it possible for people to contribute to the science of astronomy with a computer and an internet connection.
Collaborative tools have also bubbled, whether custom made for science or astronomy, or even generic, like GitHub. This makes the work of the astronomer very different today to what it was an academic generation ago. The opening up of APIs and the coding skills found in the world means that even creating the tools for astronomy research, communication and education is now possible outside the specialist circles of astronomy sub-specialities.
I will share how amazing it is to take astronomy to the people and to share the skills we have learnt as astronomers, and to see first hand how it can change the world!
Supported by Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren.
