6.12: Citizen Science and Why It Matters

Science and Society - Citizen Science

As a member of the public who is studying science (i.e., you, a person that is reading this text), it turns out there are many ways to contribute to scientific research. Have you ever thought of yourself as a scientist? Why, or why not? In reality, it’s likely that most of the people reading this text have no intentions to become a professional scientist or conduct scientific research in their career (but surely a few will!). However, the purpose of this Science and Society page is to highlight some of the ways average citizens are contributing to astronomical discoveries and why this is important.

Public involvement in scientific discovery can be tracked through recorded history in a variety of subjects including public health and biology, social sciences, and physical sciences. In more recent years, there has been a significant increase in public involvement in scientific research, now referred to as “Citizen Science”. Irwin Allen, a well-known science communicator, was one of the first to use the term “Citizen Science” in 1994 in the context of describing expertise by lay people. This term was soon modified to describe a research technique using members of the public to gather or analyze scientific data.

Citizen science is defined by the European Commission as “general public engagement in scientific research activities when citizens actively contribute to science either with their intellectual effort or surrounding knowledge or their tools and resources”. Citizen science engages the public in scientific projects that are difficult to conduct solely by scientists who lack the resources to gather or analyze data on a large scale. Citizen science engages interested volunteers in a wide variety of projects, many of which do not require any level of expertise or special equipment, as seen by the citizen scientist in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\). In this context, the value comes from wide participation and a shared curiosity to study the unknown.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): In Saguaro National Park East just outside of Tucson, Arizona, Connie Walker collects data for the Globe at Night citizen science project. (CC BY 4.0; NOIRLab via Wikimedia Commons).

Astronomy has a long history of citizen science and discovery, specifically within the community of amateur astronomers (discussed more in the chapter on Small Bodies). While there is overlap between amateur astronomy and citizen science, we want to showcase contributions of complete beginners to astronomy. Even in a world of rapidly developing technology, there is still simply too much data to be collected, reviewed, and analyzed. For example, the world’s leading telescopes can now collect multiple terabytes of data each night, and much of it will never be analyzed to its full potential. Current models of artificial intelligence (AI) can assist astronomers with certain parts of the analysis process, but often still requires many humans to help finish the job.

Some projects are combining forces of humans and technology, such as the Cool Neighbors project, which is hosted by the Zooniverse website. Since 2023, citizen scientists on this project have performed over 3 million classifications of near-Sun brown dwarf candidates. The project uses infrared image data from the WISE telescope to search for brown dwarfs near our solar system. The designers of this project use a machine learning algorithm to sift through the raw telescope data to find potential candidates, of which there are millions.

Citizen scientists narrow the candidate list even further, taking note of small details that the machine was not able to rule out. The project designers state in their publication that AI algorithms are a valuable tool for initial vetting, but still produce too many “false positives”. Therefore, citizen scientists are the best resource for identifying true candidates. Most of the images are blurry, as depicted in Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\), which is the limit of the WISE telescope's resolution. In this case, the user needs to determine if the object of interest is "near the center" of the image. Basic identification needs, such as this project, means all skill levels can participate and help identify candidates.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): A screenshot of the Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors citizen science project. (CC BY 4.0; NOIRLab via Wikimedia Commons).

In addition to Cool Neighbors and the numerous other projects listed on the Zooniverse website, some projects need only a smartphone for participation, such as the light pollution assessment by the Dark Sky Association. In this project, a complete beginner can use their phone to estimate night sky brightness, analyze major contributors to light pollution, and create maps of light pollution worldwide. These types of projects are important as light pollution becomes more prevalent and dark skies become less available to the average person (light pollution is discussed more in the Night Sky Navigation chapter).

For more information on citizen science and these projects, you can find Zooniverse and the Dark Sky project linked below. We encourage you to explore the websites further and see if any projects appeal to your own cosmic curiosities.

Further Exploration: Interactive Activity

• Explore the DarkSky Citizen Science Project using a variety of methods and ways of getting involved
• Explore the Zooniverse Astronomy page with dozens of projects to contribute to. The website also includes several other areas of citizen science beyond Astronomy.

Attributions

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0143687 

References

https://www.space.com/technology/ai-...in-observatory

https://citizenscience.eu/blog/2025/...the-age-of-ai/