Launching the VASCO Citizen Science ProjectUmeå Univ, Dept Comp Sci, Autonomous Distributed Syst Lab, S-90187 Umeå, Sweden..
Ctr Basic Space Sci, Natl Space Res & Dev Agcy, POB 2022, Enugu 410002, Nigeria..
Sirius Astron Assoc, BP 18,Cite 20 Aout, Constantine 25000, Algeria..
Univ Constantine 1, LPMPS, Dept Phys, Constantine 25000, Algeria.;CERIST, Constantine 25000, Algeria..
IES Tartessos, Barriada Hiconsa S-N, Seville 41900, Spain..
Uppsala Univ, Dept Informat Technol, Box 337, S-75105 Uppsala, Sweden..
Uppsala Univ, Dept Informat Technol, Box 337, S-75105 Uppsala, Sweden..
Univ Delaware, Dept Phys & Astron, 217 Sharp Lab, Newark, DE 19716 USA..
Ghana Space Sci & Technol Inst, Atom Haatso Rd,POB LG 80 233, Kwabenya, Accra, Ghana.;Univ Ghana, African Inst Math Sci Ghana, Accra AIMS Ghana, Summerhill Estates Ltd Rd,POB LG 25, Legon, Accra, Ghana..
Inst Astrofis Canarias, Avda Via Lactea S-N, Tenerife 38205, Spain.;Univ La Laguna, Dept Astrofis, Tenerife 38206, Spain..
Inst Astrofis Canarias, Avda Via Lactea S-N, Tenerife 38205, Spain.;Gran Telescopio Canarias GRANTECAN, Cuesta San Jose S-N, Brena Baja 38712, La Palma, Spain..
Space Laser Awareness, 3883 Petaluma Hill Rd, Santa Rosa, CA 95404 USA..
Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Inst Particle Phys & Astrophys, Wolfgang Pauli Str 27, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland..
Flemish Inst Technol Res VITO, B-2400 Mol, Belgium..
Radboud Univ Nijmegen, Dept Astrophys IMAPP, NL-6525 AJ Nijmegen, Netherlands..
Inst Astrofis Canarias, Avda Via Lactea S-N, Tenerife 38205, Spain.;Univ La Laguna, Dept Astrofis, Tenerife 38206, Spain..
Univ Sci & Technol, Meru Phys Dept, POB 972-60200, Meru, Kenya..
Chinese Acad Sci, Shanghai Astron Observ, Key Lab Res Galaxies & Cosmol, 80 Nandan Rd, Shanghai 200030, Peoples R China..
Univ Durham, Ctr Extragalact Astron, Dept Phys, South Rd, Durham DH1 3LE, England..
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2022 (English)In: Universe, E-ISSN 2218-1997, Vol. 8, no 11, p. 561-, article id 561Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project investigates astronomical surveys spanning a time interval of 70 years, searching for unusual and exotic transients. We present herein the VASCO Citizen Science Project, which can identify unusual candidates driven by three different approaches: hypothesis, exploratory, and machine learning, which is particularly useful for SETI searches. To address the big data challenge, VASCO combines three methods: the Virtual Observatory, user-aided machine learning, and visual inspection through citizen science. Here we demonstrate the citizen science project and its improved candidate selection process, and we give a progress report. We also present the VASCO citizen science network led by amateur astronomy associations mainly located in Algeria, Cameroon, and Nigeria. At the moment of writing, the citizen science project has carefully examined 15,593 candidate image pairs in the data (ca. 10% of the candidates), and has so far identified 798 objects classified as "vanished". The most interesting candidates will be followed up with optical and infrared imaging, together with the observations by the most potent radio telescopes.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI AG , 2022. Vol. 8, no 11, p. 561-, article id 561
Keywords [en]
surveys, transients, SETI, citizen science
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-322222DOI: 10.3390/universe8110561ISI: 000881392200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85141787535OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-322222DiVA, id: diva2:1716241
Note
QC 20221205
2022-12-052022-12-052022-12-05Bibliographically approved