You can now help find black holes from home!

I was chilling out at home listening to the wireless this afternoon when the words 'black hole' were broadcast, so immediately my ears pricked up.

It turns out that there is a website where you can actively look for black hole emissions (or jets) with the click of a mouse. It's not like SETI@home, which idles in the background using the power of your processor, you can actually help with the search yourself! here's a little snippet from the site.

In order to better understand how supermassive black holes form, astronomers need more data to input into their models. Ideally, they need information about black holes at all stages of their lifecycle.

To accomplish this, we want to identify as many black hole/jet pairs as possible and associate them with their host galaxies; with a large enough sample (from your classifications), we can pick out black holes at different stages and build a better picture of their origins.

Radio Galaxy Zoo

I couldn't help myself so I gave it a try, and it's really simple. You are given an image in two spectrum; Radio and infrared. Firstly you identify the possible black holes via the contours on the radio image, then you simply match the contours on the radio image to the ones in infrared, and that's it, no plugins, no sign up, you just click and contribute.

I've already bookmarked the site and will use it whenever I'm waiting for a site to load of a video to buffer. It's hardly brain busting and it's a way to contribute to astronomy when we wouldn't normally have the chance. I urge you to at least have a look.

I put in all the pertinent data, and it told me there is a massive black hole on the exact co-ordinates of the White-House, this black hole seems to surpass the size of all black-holes registered to this date. I'm not alking about Obama's but crack or mouth either, it's a different type it seems, a black-hole that swallow large amount of non-existent fiat money. I was shocked and alarmed to say the least.

With how much time Im going to spend on this, and also how much time I spent on SETI, I should make as much money as a regular astronaut.

buni11687
With how much time Im going to spend on this, and also how much time I spent on SETI, I should make as much money as a regular astronaut.

Pssst.... We could use your help over here as well... And unlike that upstart Black Hole search we've already found 2 planets...now celebrating its 3 year birthday:



Come find planets with me!