FERENGI complete + new Illustris images!

Hi everyone, it’s Mel and Hugh from Minnesota, and we (especially Mel) would like to give a big THANK YOU for all of your help classifying these last couple of months! When we originally launched the second Ferengi set , it was estimated that it would take four months for the data to be complete, based on the current classification rates. Thanks to your help, that time was cut in half, and Mel’s thesis is officially saved! (Stay tuned this Spring for updates on how Mel is using these classifications to study morphological transformations of Hubble galaxies from 6 billion years ago to today.)

Now that those are complete, we have another announcement…

Illustris is back!

This week Galaxy Zoo volunteers may notice the appearance of simulated galaxy images produced by the Illustris project.

Illustris is one of several large-scale cosmological simulations that play a key role in helping us to understand how galaxies formed and how the Universe and its contents have evolved throughout cosmic history.

To learn more about Illustris, check out this previous blog post  or the main Illustris project website.

An Illustris galaxy – on the left is the original image from the simulation, on the right is the galaxy “Sloanified” with realistic colors and dropping it onto a real SDSS background.