The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one such large-scale survey. With these millions of galaxies, astronomers hope they can learn much more about how they formed and evolved during the 13 billion years or so they have had to develop since the start of the universe.

A group of scientists have developed a unique way to identify one million galaxies that are in need of being classified. They are asking thousands of volunteers to help organize a collection of about one million photographs of galaxies taken by a digital camera mounted on a telescope located at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico (United States). The project is called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

The volunteer project is called GalaxyZoo.

The website of GalaxyZoo (http://www.galaxyzoo.org/) states: “Welcome to GalaxyZoo, the project which harnesses the power of the internet - and your brain - to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you'll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you'll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky.”

Volunteers are asked to log into the GalaxyZoo system. After being given a brief tutorial on the correct way to classify galaxies, would-be volunteers are given a quiz. If they pass the test, they are then able to begin sorting through the various galaxies.

Basically, the approved volunteers are asked to classify each galaxy as either elliptical or spiral in nature, and, when possible, which direction each galaxy rotates.

The GalaxyZoo team found that computer programs are not as smart as the human brain when it comes to identifying galaxies. So with the help of 10,000 to 20,000 volunteers, years worth of work will hopefully be completed within one month.

Although computers are not known to fudge the facts and play dirty tricks on other computers, this is not equally true about some humans. In order to avoid dishonesty with some volunteers, the GalaxyZoo team is using several volunteers to classify each galaxy.

This scientific effort of identifying one million galaxies will hopefully, when completed, help astronomers to learn more about the nature of galaxies and, ultimately, more about cosmology (the history and evolution of the universe) and particle physics (the study of the elementary components of matter and radiation).

So volunteer your time. It's good for you and its good for the universe!

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