Citizen Science: Space Research needs assistants

Asteroids have always fascinated people – amateur astronomers can now help them find some celestial bodies. According to the University of Northern Arizona, the “Active Asteroids” project is the discovery of so-called active asteroids in the solar system that can be identified by a comet-like tail. No previous astronomical knowledge required, amateur astronomers trained through the online site for their work.

Accordingly, not even 30 such objects, known as main belt comets, have been discovered since 1949. The researcher’s goal was described by Colin Orion Chandler Citizen-Science-Projects For now we will quadruple this number. Check out more than 10 million asteroid images – and only one in ten thousand asteroids can be classified as a major belt comet.

The main belt comets are small celestial bodies in the solar system that, like asteroids, are in Earth-like orbit, but at least temporarily leave dust like comets and comets. Its origin is not yet known. With the increase in the known number of such substances, research is moving forward. Science, among other things, hopes to provide information on the origin of water on Earth and the knowledge that water may be a prerequisite for life in other solar systems.

Asteroids are mainly found in an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Due to collisions and interactions with planets, some people are able to cross the Earth’s orbit. Meteors are mostly made of metal and rocks, while comets are mostly made of dust and ice. Due to the enormous proportion of material that evaporates when heated, comets have the usual long tails.