Zooniverse Papers
This collection of papers, arising from the Zooniverse projects, are the results of collaboration with hundreds of thousands of 'citizen scientist' volunteers, many of whom are not at academic institutions.
Disc Detective
Michiharu Hyogo, Thomas P Bickle, Joseph R Biggs, Adam J Burgasser, Dan Caselden, Sarah Casewell, Sergio B Dieterich, Hugo A Durantini Luca, Jacqueline Faherty, Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi, Jonathan Gagné, J Davy Kirkpatrick, Marc J Kuchner, Carey M Lisse, Federico Marocco, Aaron M Meisner, Austin Rothermich, Adam C Schneider, Steven M Silverberg
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 538, Issue 2, April 2025, Pages 1019–1028, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf360
The Disc Detective project, a citizen science initiative, aims to identify circumstellar discs around stars by detecting objects with infrared (IR) excess using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). In this study, we investigate SIPS J2045–6332, a potential brown dwarf with significant IR excess in WISE and Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) bands, initially identified by project volunteers.
Galaxy Zoo: JWST
R J Smethurst, B D Simmons, T Géron, H Dickinson, L Fortson, I L Garland, S Kruk, S M Jewell, C J Lintott, J S Makechemu, K B Mantha, K L Masters, D O’Ryan, H Roberts, M R Thorne, M Walmsley, M Calabrò, B Holwerda, J S Kartaltepe, A M Koekemoer, Y Lyu, R Lucas, F Pacucci, M Tarrasse
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, staf506, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf506
We have not yet observed the epoch at which disc galaxies emerge in the Universe. While high-z measurements of large-scale features such as bars and spiral arms trace the evolution of disc galaxies, such methods cannot directly quantify featureless discs in the early Universe. Here we identify a substantial population of apparently featureless disc galaxies in the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey by combining quantitative visual morphologies of ∼7000 galaxies from the Galaxy Zoo JWST CEERS project with a public catalogue of expert visual and parametric morphologies.
Bursts from Space: MeerKAT
Alex Andersson , Chris Lintott , Rob Fender , Michelle Lochner , Patrick Woudt , Jakob van den Eijnden , Alexander van der Horst , Assaf Horesh , Payaswini Saikia , Gregory R Sivakoff , Lilia Tremou , Mattia Vaccari
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 538, Issue 3, April 2025, Pages 1397–1414, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf336
n this work, we explore the applicability of unsupervised machine learning algorithms to finding radio transients. Facilities such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will provide huge volumes of data in which to detect rare transients; the challenge for astronomers is how to find them. We demonstrate the effectiveness of anomaly detection algorithms using 1.3 GHz light curves from the SKA precursor MeerKAT.
Alex Andersson, Chris Lintott, Rob Fender, Joe Bright, Francesco Carotenuto, Laura Driessen, Mathilde Espinasse, Kelebogile Gasealahwe, Ian Heywood, Alexander J van der Horst, Sara Motta, Lauren Rhodes, Evangelia Tremou, David R A Williams, Patrick Woudt, Xian Zhang, Steven Bloemen, Paul Groot, Paul Vreeswijk, Stefano Giarratana, Payaswini Saikia, Jonas Andersson, Lizzeth Ruiz Arroyo, Loïc Baert, Matthew Baumann, Wilfried Domainko, Thorsten Eschweiler, Tim Forsythe, Sauro Gaudenzi, Rachel Ann Grenier, Davide Iannone, Karla Lahoz, Kyle J Melville, Marianne De Sousa Nascimento, Leticia Navarro, Sai Parthasarathi, Piilonen, Najma Rahman, Jeffrey Smith, B Stewart, Newton Temoke, Chloe Tworek, Isabelle Whittle
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 523, Issue 2, August 2023, Pages 2219–2235, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1298
The newest generation of radio telescopes is able to survey large areas with high sensitivity and cadence, producing data volumes that require new methods to better understand the transient sky. Here, we describe the results from the first citizen science project dedicated to commensal radio transients, using data from the MeerKAT telescope with weekly cadence.
Citizen ASAS-SN
C T Christy, T Jayasinghe, K Z Stanek, C S Kochanek, T A Thompson, B J Shappee, T W-S Holoien, J L Prieto, Subo Dong, W Giles
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 519, Issue 4, March 2023, Pages 5271–5287, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3801
The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) is the first optical survey to monitor the entire sky, currently with a cadence of ≲ 24 h down to g ≲ 18.5 mag. ASAS-SN has routinely operated since 2013, collecting ∼ 2 000 to over 7 500 epochs of V- and g-band observations per field to date.
Cosmological Jellyfish
Elad Zinger, Gandhali D Joshi, Annalisa Pillepich, Eric Rohr, Dylan Nelson
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 527, Issue 3, January 2024, Pages 8257–8289, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3716
We present the ‘Cosmological Jellyfish’ project – a citizen-science classification program to identify jellyfish (JF) galaxies within the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulations. JF are satellite galaxies that exhibit long trailing gas features – ‘tails’ – extending from their stellar body. Their distinctive morphology arises due to ram-pressure stripping (RPS) as they move through the background gaseous medium.
Junia Göller, Gandhali D Joshi, Eric Rohr, Elad Zinger, Annalisa Pillepich
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 525, Issue 3, November 2023, Pages 3551–3570, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2551
Due to ram-pressure stripping (RPS), jellyfish galaxies are thought to lose large amounts, if not all, of their interstellar medium. Nevertheless, some, but not all, observations suggest that jellyfish galaxies exhibit enhanced star formation compared to control samples, even in their ram pressure-stripped tails.
Eric Rohr, Annalisa Pillepich, Dylan Nelson, Elad Zinger, Gandhali D Joshi, Mohammadreza Ayromlou
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 524, Issue 3, September 2023, Pages 3502–3525, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2101
Jellyfish galaxies are prototypical examples of satellite galaxies undergoing strong ram pressure stripping (RPS). We analyse the evolution of 512 unique, first-infalling jellyfish galaxies from the TNG50 cosmological simulation.
Galaxy Builder
Timothy Lingard, Karen L Masters, Coleman Krawczyk, Chris Lintott, Sandor Kruk, Brooke Simmons, William Keel, Robert C Nichol, Elisabeth Baeten
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 504, Issue 3, July 2021, Pages 3364–3374, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1072
Spiral structure is ubiquitous in the Universe, and the pitch angle of arms in spiral galaxies provide an important observable in efforts to discriminate between different mechanisms of spiral arm formation and evolution. In this paper, we present a hierarchical Bayesian approach to galaxy pitch angle determination, using spiral arm data obtained through the Galaxy Builder citizen science project.
Galaxy Zoo
Izzy L Garland, Mike Walmsley, Maddie S Silcock, Leah M Potts, Josh Smith, Brooke D Simmons, Chris J Lintott, Rebecca J Smethurst, James M Dawson, William C Keel, Sandor Kruk, Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha, Karen L Masters, David O’Ryan, Jürgen J Popp, Matthew R Thorne
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 532, Issue 2, August 2024, Pages 2320–2330, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1620
Despite the evidence that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) co-evolve with their host galaxy, and that most of the growth of these SMBHs occurs via merger-free processes, the underlying mechanisms which drive this secular co-evolution are poorly understood. We investigate the role that both strong and weak large-scale galactic bars play in mediating this relationship.
Tobias Géron, Rebecca J Smethurst, Chris Lintott, Sandor Kruk, Karen L Masters, Brooke Simmons, Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha, Mike Walmsley, L Garma-Oehmichen, Niv Drory, Richard R Lane
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 521, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 1775–1793, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad501
We study the bar pattern speeds and corotation radii of 225 barred galaxies, using integral field unit data from MaNGA and the Tremaine–Weinberg method. Our sample, which is divided between strongly and weakly barred galaxies identified via Galaxy Zoo, is the largest that this method has been applied to
Mike Walmsley, Tobias Géron, Sandor Kruk, Anna M M Scaife, Chris Lintott, Karen L Masters, James M Dawson, Hugh Dickinson, Lucy Fortson, Izzy L Garland, Kameswara Mantha, David O’Ryan, Jürgen Popp, Brooke Simmons, Elisabeth M Baeten, Christine Macmillan
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 526, Issue 3, December 2023, Pages 4768–4786, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2919
We present detailed morphology measurements for 8.67 million galaxies in the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (DECaLS, MzLS, and BASS, plus DES). These are automated measurements made by deep learning models trained on Galaxy Zoo volunteer votes. Our models typically predict the fraction of volunteers selecting each answer to within 5–10 per cent for every answer to every GZ question.
Mike Walmsley, Anna M M Scaife, Chris Lintott, Michelle Lochner, Verlon Etsebeth, Tobias Géron, Hugh Dickinson, Lucy Fortson, Sandor Kruk, Karen L Masters, Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha, Brooke D Simmons
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 513, Issue 2, June 2022, Pages 1581–1599, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac525
Astronomers have typically set out to solve supervised machine learning problems by creating their own representations from scratch. We show that deep learning models trained to answer every Galaxy Zoo DECaLS question learn meaningful semantic representations of galaxies that are useful for new tasks on which the models were never trained.
Rebecca J Smethurst, Karen L Masters, Brooke D Simmons, Izzy L Garland, Tobias Géron, Boris Häußler, Sandor Kruk, Chris J Lintott, David O’Ryan, Mike Walmsley
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 510, Issue 3, March 2022, Pages 4126–4133, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3607
The galaxy population is strongly bimodal in both colour and morphology, and the two measures correlate strongly, with most blue galaxies being late-types (spirals) and most early-types, typically ellipticals, being red. This observation has led to the use of colour as a convenient selection criterion to make samples that are then labelled by morphology.
Mike Walmsley, Chris Lintott, Tobias Géron, Sandor Kruk, Coleman Krawczyk, Kyle W Willett, Steven Bamford, Lee S Kelvin, Lucy Fortson, Yarin Gal, William Keel, Karen L Masters, Vihang Mehta, Brooke D Simmons, Rebecca Smethurst, Lewis Smith, Elisabeth M Baeten, Christine Macmillan
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 509, Issue 3, January 2022, Pages 3966–3988, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab2093
We present Galaxy Zoo DECaLS: detailed visual morphological classifications for Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey images of galaxies within the SDSS DR8 footprint. Deeper DECaLS images (r = 23.6 versus r = 22.2 from SDSS) reveal spiral arms, weak bars, and tidal features not previously visible in SDSS imaging.
Tobias Géron, R J Smethurst, Chris Lintott, Sandor Kruk, Karen L Masters, Brooke Simmons, David V Stark
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 507, Issue 3, November 2021, Pages 4389–4408, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab2064
We have used Galaxy Zoo DECaLS (GZD) to study strong and weak bars in disc galaxies. Out of the 314 000 galaxies in GZD, we created a volume-limited sample (0.01 < z < 0.05, Mr < − 18.96) which contains 1867 galaxies with reliable volunteer bar classifications in the ALFALFA footprint.
Mike Walmsley, Lewis Smith, Chris Lintott, Yarin Gal, Steven Bamford, Hugh Dickinson, Lucy Fortson, Sandor Kruk, Karen Masters, Claudia Scarlata, Brooke Simmons, Rebecca Smethurst, Darryl Wright
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 491, Issue 2, January 2020, Pages 1554–1574, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2816
We use Bayesian convolutional neural networks and a novel generative model of Galaxy Zoo volunteer responses to infer posteriors for the visual morphology of galaxies. Bayesian CNN can learn from galaxy images with uncertain labels and then, for previously unlabelled galaxies, predict the probability of each possible label.
Galaxy Zoo: 3D
Karen L Masters, Coleman Krawczyk, Shoaib Shamsi, Alexander Todd, Daniel Finnegan, Matthew Bershady, Kevin Bundy, Brian Cherinka, Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, Dhanesh Krishnarao, Sandor Kruk, Richard R Lane, David Law, Chris Lintott, Michael Merrifield, Brooke Simmons, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Renbin Yan
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 507, Issue 3, November 2021, Pages 3923–3935, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab2282
The challenge of consistent identification of internal structure in galaxies – in particular disc galaxy components like spiral arms, bars, and bulges – has hindered our ability to study the physical impact of such structure across large samples.
Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout
Hugh Dickinson, Dominic Adams, Vihang Mehta, Claudia Scarlata, Lucy Fortson, Stephen Serjeant, Coleman Krawczyk, Sandor Kruk, Chris Lintott, Kameswara Bharadwaj Mantha, Brooke D Simmons, Mike Walmsley
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 517, Issue 4, December 2022, Pages 5882–5911, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2919
Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout is a web-based citizen science project designed to identify and spatially locate giant star forming clumps in galaxies that were imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Legacy Survey. We present a statistically driven software framework that is designed to aggregate two-dimensional annotations of clump locations provided by multiple independent Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout volunteers and generate a consensus label that identifies the locations of probable clumps within each galaxy.
Kilonova Seekers
T L Killestein, L Kelsey, E Wickens, L Nuttall, J Lyman, C Krawczyk, K Ackley, M J Dyer, F Jiménez-Ibarra, K Ulaczyk, D O’Neill, A Kumar, D Steeghs, D K Galloway, V S Dhillon, P O’Brien, G Ramsay, K Noysena, R Kotak, R P Breton, E Pallé, D Pollacco, S Awiphan, S Belkin, P Chote, P Clark, D Coppejans, C Duffy, R Eyles-Ferris, B Godson, B Gompertz, O Graur, P Irawati, D Jarvis, Y Julakanti, M R Kennedy, H Kuncarayakti, A Levan, S Littlefair, M Magee, S Mandhai, D Mata Sánchez, S Mattila, J McCormac, J Mullaney, J Munday, M Patel, M Pursiainen, J Rana, U Sawangwit, E Stanway, R Starling, B Warwick, K Wiersema
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 533, Issue 2, September 2024, Pages 2113–2132, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1817
Time-domain astrophysics continues to grow rapidly, with the inception of new surveys drastically increasing data volumes. Democratized, distributed approaches to training sets for machine learning classifiers are crucial to make the most of this torrent of discovery – with citizen science approaches proving effective at meeting these requirements.
Planet Hunters TESS
N L Eisner, C Johnston, S Toonen, A J Frost, S Janssens, C J Lintott, S Aigrain, H Sana, M Abdul-Masih, K Z Arellano-Córdova, P G Beck, E Bordier, E Cannon, A Escorza, M Fabry, L Hermansson, S B Howell, G Miller, S Sheyte, S Alhassan, E M L Baeten, F Barnet, S J Bean, M Bernau, D M Bundy, M Z Di Fraia, F M Emralino, B L Goodwin, P Hermes, T Hoffman, M Huten, R Janíček, S Lee, M T Mazzucato, D J Rogers, M P Rout, J Sejpka, C Tanner, I A Terentev, D Urvoy
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 511, Issue 4, April 2022, Pages 4710–4723, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3619
We report the discovery and analysis of a massive, compact, hierarchical triple system (TIC 470710327) initially identified by citizen scientists in data obtained by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
N L Eisner, B A Nicholson, O Barragán, S Aigrain, C Lintott, L Kaye, B Klein, G Miller, J Taylor, N Zicher, L A Buchhave, D A Caldwell, J Horner, J Llama, A Mortier, V M Rajpaul, K Stassun, A Sporer, A Tkachenko, J M Jenkins, D Latham, G Ricker, S Seager, J Winn, S Alhassan, E M L Baeten, S J Bean, D M Bundy, V Efremov, R Ferstenou, B L Goodwin, M Hof, T Hoffman, A Hubert, L Lau, S Lee, D Maetschke, K Peltsch, C Rubio-Alfaro, G M Wilson
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 505, Issue 2, August 2021, Pages 1827–1840, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1253
We report on the discovery and validation of a two-planet system around a bright (V = 8.85 mag) early G dwarf (1.43 R⊙, 1.15 M⊙, TOI 2319) using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Three transit events from two planets were detected by citizen scientists in the month-long TESS light curve (sector 25), as part of the Planet Hunters TESS project.
N L Eisner, O Barragán, C Lintott, S Aigrain, B Nicholson, T S Boyajian, S Howell, C Johnston, B Lakeland, G Miller, A McMaster, H Parviainen, E J Safron, M E Schwamb, L Trouille, S Vaughan, N Zicher, C Allen, S Allen, M Bouslog, C Johnson, M N Simon, Z Wolfenbarger, E M L Baeten, D M Bundy, T Hoffman
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 501, Issue 4, March 2021, Pages 4669–4690, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa3739
We present the results from the first two years of the Planet Hunters TESS (PHT) citizen science project, which identifies planet candidates in the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) data by engaging members of the general public. Over 22 000 citizen scientists from around the world visually inspected the first 26 sectors of TESS data in order to help identify transit-like signals.
N L Eisner, O Barragán, S Aigrain, C Lintott, G Miller, N Zicher, T S Boyajian, C Briceño, E M Bryant, J L Christiansen, A D Feinstein, L M Flor-Torres, M Fridlund, D Gandolfi, J Gilbert, N Guerrero, J M Jenkins, K Jones, M H Kristiansen, A Vanderburg, N Law, A R López-Sánchez, A W Mann, E J Safron, M E Schwamb, K G Stassun, H P Osborn, J Wang, A Zic, C Ziegler, F Barnet, S J Bean, D M Bundy, Z Chetnik, J L Dawson, J Garstone, A G Stenner, M Huten, S Larish, L D Melanson, T Mitchell, C Moore, K Peltsch, D J Rogers, C Schuster, D S Smith, D J Simister, C Tanner, I Terentev, A Tsymbal
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 494, Issue 1, May 2020, Pages 750–763, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa138
We report on the discovery and validation of TOI 813 b (TIC 55525572 b), a transiting exoplanet identified by citizen scientists in data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the first planet discovered by the Planet Hunters TESS project.
Planet Patrol
Christian Magliano, Veselin Kostov, Luca Cacciapuoti, Giovanni Covone, Laura Inno, Stefano Fiscale, Marc Kuchner, Elisa V Quintana, Ryan Salik, Vito Saggese, John M Yablonsky, Aline U Fornear, Michiharu Hyogo, Marco Z Di Fraia, Hugo A Durantini Luca, Julien S de Lambilly, Fabrizio Oliva, Isabella Pagano, Riccardo M Ienco, Lucas T de Lima, Marc Andrés-Carcasona, Francesco Gallo, Sovan Acharya
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 521, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 3749–3764, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad683
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission is providing the scientific community with millions of light curves of stars spread across the whole sky. Since 2018, the telescope has detected thousands of planet candidates that need to be meticulously scrutinized before being considered amenable targets for follow-up programs.
Luca Cacciapuoti, Veselin B Kostov, Marc Kuchner, Elisa V Quintana, Knicole D Colón, Jonathan Brande, Susan E Mullally, Quadry Chance, Jessie L Christiansen, John P Ahlers, Marco Z Di Fraia, Hugo A Durantini Luca, Riccardo M Ienco, Francesco Gallo, Lucas T de Lima, Michiharu Hyogo, Marc Andrés-Carcasona, Aline U Fornear, Julien S de Lambilly, Ryan Salik, John M Yablonsky, Shaun Wallace, Sovan Acharya
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 513, Issue 1, June 2022, Pages 102–116, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac652
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has detected thousands of exoplanet candidates since 2018, most of which have yet to be confirmed. A key step in the confirmation process of these candidates is ruling out false positives through vetting.
Radio Galaxy Zoo
O Ivy Wong, A F Garon, M J Alger, L Rudnick, S S Shabala, K W Willett, J K Banfield, H Andernach, R P Norris, J Swan, M J Hardcastle, C J Lintott, S V White, N Seymour, A D Kapińska, H Tang, B D Simmons, K Schawinski
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 536, Issue 4, February 2025, Pages 3488–3506, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2790
Radio galaxies can extend far beyond the stellar component of their originating host galaxies, and their radio emission can consist of multiple discrete components. Furthermore, the apparent source structure will depend on survey sensitivity, resolution and the observing frequency. Associated discrete radio components and their originating host galaxy are typically identified through a visual comparison of radio and mid-infrared survey images.
Micah Bowles, Hongming Tang, Eleni Vardoulaki, Emma L Alexander, Yan Luo, Lawrence Rudnick, Mike Walmsley, Fiona Porter, Anna M M Scaife, Inigo Val Slijepcevic, Elizabeth A K Adams, Alexander Drabent, Thomas Dugdale, Gülay Gürkan, Andrew M Hopkins, Eric F Jimenez-Andrade, Denis A Leahy, Ray P Norris, Syed Faisal ur Rahman, Xichang Ouyang, Gary Segal, Stanislav S Shabala, O Ivy Wong
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 522, Issue 2, June 2023, Pages 2584–2600, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1021
We present a novel natural language processing (NLP) approach to deriving plain English descriptors for science cases otherwise restricted by obfuscating technical terminology. We address the limitations of common radio galaxy morphology classifications by applying this approach.
Inigo V Slijepcevic, Anna M M Scaife, Mike Walmsley, Micah Bowles, O Ivy Wong, Stanislav S Shabala, Hongming Tang
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 514, Issue 2, August 2022, Pages 2599–2613, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac1135
In this work, we examine the classification accuracy and robustness of a state-of-the-art semi-supervised learning (SSL) algorithm applied to the morphological classification of radio galaxies. We test if SSL with fewer labels can achieve test accuracies comparable to the supervised state of the art and whether this holds when incorporating previously unseen data.
H Tang, A M M Scaife, O I Wong, S S Shabala
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 510, Issue 3, March 2022, Pages 4504–4524, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3553
In this work we explore the potential of multidomain multibranch convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for identifying comparatively rare giant radio galaxies from large volumes of survey data, such as those expected for new generation radio telescopes like the SKA and its precursors.
H Tang, A M M Scaife, O I Wong, A D Kapińska, L Rudnick, S S Shabala, N Seymour, R P Norris
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 499, Issue 1, November 2020, Pages 68–76, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2805
In this paper, we present the identification of five previously unknown giant radio galaxies (GRGs) using Data Release 1 of the Radio Galaxy Zoo citizen science project and a selection method appropriate to the training and validation of deep learning algorithms for new radio surveys.
Spiral Graph
Ian B Hewitt, Patrick Treuthardt
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 493, Issue 3, April 2020, Pages 3854–3865, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa354
The pitch angle (PA) of arms in spiral galaxies has been found to correlate with a number of important parameters that are normally time intensive and difficult to measure. Accurate PA measurements are therefore important in understanding the underlying physics of disc galaxies.
SuperWASP Variable Stars
Heidi B Thiemann, Andrew J Norton, Hugh J Dickinson, Adam McMaster, Ulrich C Kolb
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 502, Issue 1, March 2021, Pages 1299–1311, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab140
We present the first analysis of results from the SuperWASP variable stars Zooniverse project, which is aiming to classify 1.6 million phase-folded light curves of candidate stellar variables observed by the SuperWASP all sky survey with periods detected in the SuperWASP periodicity catalogue.
The Hunt for Galaxy Clusters
Matej Kosiba, Maggie Lieu, Bruno Altieri, Nicolas Clerc, Lorenzo Faccioli, Sarah Kendrew, Ivan Valtchanov, Tatyana Sadibekova, Marguerite Pierre, Filip Hroch, Norbert Werner, Lukáš Burget, Christian Garrel, Elias Koulouridis, Evelina Gaynullina, Mona Molham, Miriam E Ramos-Ceja, Alina Khalikova
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 496, Issue 4, August 2020, Pages 4141–4153, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1723
Galaxy clusters appear as extended sources in XMM–Newton images, but not all extended sources are clusters. So, their proper classification requires visual inspection with optical images, which is a slow process with biases that are almost impossible to model. We tackle this problem with a novel approach, using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a state-of-the-art image classification tool, for automatic classification of galaxy cluster candidates.
