Today millions of "civil scientists" pursue science, without leaving the house

Certainly, the most outstanding achievement of the Internet – access to huge volumes of the most various information. Today, to make discovery, it is already not obligatory to sit in advanced laboratory at all or to stew over books in library: the Internet and the computer have made science available to each PC user. Thanks to it, the new profession – "the civil scientist" was born.

So, for example, the mechanic from Australia Andrew Gray managed to find the whole star system after the analysis of the data obtained from the Kepler space telescope. Gray – one of millions of "civil scientists", the ordinary person showing genuine interest in science. Already now "civil" scientific projects help professional scientists to expand borders of human knowledge considerably.

For example, the Zoonvers platform project developed at the University of Oxford allows practically any Internet user to take part in scientific research, without appearing the house. Within Zoonvers the Milky Way project with participation of thousands of volunteers who help scientists to classify pictures from space is implemented.

In particular, him it has been entrusted to investigate infrared images from the Spitzer space telescope and the pictures received by satellite observatories. As a result, volunteers have helped astronomers to find "yellow spheres" — a special class of space objects which represents a transitional link from germs of stars to newborn stars.

The picture of yellow spheres from the Spitzer telescope

Civil scientists can work practically in any field of science, being engaged, for example, in systematization of pictures or schedules, previously having received a short lesson at professionals. As practice has shown, it is much simpler to prepare the interested person, than the computer even by means of the most advanced programs of machine learning.

Source