NASA is allowing civilians to become amateur astronomers as they search for the answers about mysterious explosions in space.
Citizen ‘Burst Chasers’ are being asked to read signals from the events, known as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and decode what the universe might be saying.
Gamma rays are bright form of lights that comes from billions of light years away from Earth – and the American space agency believe the cosmic wonder’s origins live in the released pulses.
Volunteer scientists will examine any slow bursts of energy that the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory telescope detects and submit their findings through the project’s website.
Gamma Rays are a bright form of light that comes from billions of light years away
the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory telescope detects bursts of light, or gamma rays
GRBs were first discovered in the 1960s and have since amazed scientists worldwide – but have also sparked a hunt to find out what causes these violent explosions.
When stars or black holes die, they drive out material at velocities close to the speed of light, and powerful bright, short-lived gamma-ray flashes that can be detected by satellites orbiting the Earth.
The magnetic fields are not seen directly, but telescopes like the Hubble pick up a signature that is encoded in the light produced by charged particles, or electrons, that whiz around the magnetic field lines.
And Earth-bound telescopes have also captured this light, which has travelled for millions of years across the universe.
NASA described the pulses as ‘short flashes in gamma rays and are one of the most energetic explosions in the universe!’
The agency added that while they know what gamma rays are connected to, ‘exactly how these events produce pulses with such a variety of characteristics remain a mystery.’
In a desperate plea, NASA concluded: ‘We need your help to sort out these pulses to better understand how these powerful gamma-ray pulses are created.’
The Burst Chaser project’s site gives amateur astronomers directions for what kind of responses they’re looking for.
Volunteers can join the Burst Chaser project to identify pulses emitted from Gamma Rays
The website also provides a tutorial and a task meant to test the person’s knowledge of recording and classifying the pulse shapes of gamma-ray bursts.
When a gamma ray explodes, it emits both a noise fluctuation and a pulse, which NASA is classifying as twice the size of the noise.
The bursts could give astronomers insight into what happens in extreme environments that they can’t replicate on Earth, and it could provide clues into how the universe formed and evolved.
However, NASA explains that ‘there are no clear-cut definitions between pulses and noise,’ and requests that volunteers ‘please use your best judgment to distinguish them.’
The Burst Chaser project has received more than 1,200 volunteers and nearly 72,000 gamma-ray classifications.
“We need your help to classify these pulses for more clues of what they really are!” said Professor Amy Lien from the University of Tampa, the project’s Principal Investigator.
