BBC RADIO 4

Today Weekdays 6-9am and Saturdays 7-9am

  • News Feeds
Page last updated at 06:58 GMT, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 07:58 UK

Scientist: Human eye better than technology for galaxy 'spotting'

Advertisement

Over the past five years members of the public have been helping out scientists by "spotting" galaxies - identifying them by their shape.

It's part of a project called Galaxy Zoo and it has been so successful that the scientists are releasing another quarter of a million star smudges for people to identify.

The project's principle investigator, Dr Chris Lintott of Oxford University who also presents The Sky at Night, told the Today programme's Sarah Montague: "If you know the shape of the galaxy, you can understand its history.

"If we want to understand how our universe assembled, we need to sort them out by shape and that's something that computers are terrible at doing."


Get in touch with Today via email , Twitter or Facebook or text us on 84844.

SEE ALSO

Story Tools

Americas Africa Europe Middle East South Asia Asia Pacific