#zooniverse — Public Fediverse posts

✨ L'ESA vous invite à Space Warps : Grâce aux images du télescope #Euclid, repérez des galaxies qui déforment l’espace-temps via la science citoyenne sur #Zooniverse. Aidez à percer les mystères des lentilles gravitationnelles, de la matière noire et de l’énergie sombre !
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/aprajita/space-warps-esa-euclid

✨ L'ESA vous invite à Space Warps : Grâce aux images du télescope #Euclid, repérez des galaxies qui déforment l’espace-temps via la science citoyenne sur #Zooniverse. Aidez à percer les mystères des lentilles gravitationnelles, de la matière noire et de l’énergie sombre !
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/aprajita/space-warps-esa-euclid

✨ L'ESA vous invite à Space Warps : Grâce aux images du télescope #Euclid, repérez des galaxies qui déforment l’espace-temps via la science citoyenne sur #Zooniverse. Aidez à percer les mystères des lentilles gravitationnelles, de la matière noire et de l’énergie sombre !
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/aprajita/space-warps-esa-euclid

✨ L'ESA vous invite à Space Warps : Grâce aux images du télescope #Euclid, repérez des galaxies qui déforment l’espace-temps via la science citoyenne sur #Zooniverse. Aidez à percer les mystères des lentilles gravitationnelles, de la matière noire et de l’énergie sombre !
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/aprajita/space-warps-esa-euclid

✨ L'ESA vous invite à Space Warps : Grâce aux images du télescope #Euclid, repérez des galaxies qui déforment l’espace-temps via la science citoyenne sur #Zooniverse. Aidez à percer les mystères des lentilles gravitationnelles, de la matière noire et de l’énergie sombre !
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/aprajita/space-warps-esa-euclid

🎉 Zooniverse passes 3 million volunteers! The world's largest citizen-science platform now counts 3M people contributing to real research — classifying galaxies, hunting exoplanets, analysing radio data and mapping wildlife. All you need is a browser. Join in! (21 Apr 2026)

https://blog.zooniverse.org/2026/04/21/3-million-volunteers/

#CitizenScience #Zooniverse #DataScience #Science #Astronomy

Space Warps is back! Do you want to join forces with Euclid Consortium scientists and discover gravitational lenses that no human has ever seen before?

We’re announcing the next Space Warps Citizen Science campaign with Euclid data – now previewing images from Data Release 1. Here is how to become part of the project:

https://www.euclid-ec.org/space-warps-euclid-dr1/

#astronomy #science #GravitationalLenses #ESA #space #CitizenScience #ESAEuclid #Zooniverse

Space Warps is back! Do you want to join forces with Euclid Consortium scientists and discover gravitational lenses that no human has ever seen before?

We’re announcing the next Space Warps Citizen Science campaign with Euclid data – now previewing images from Data Release 1. Here is how to become part of the project:

https://www.euclid-ec.org/space-warps-euclid-dr1/

#astronomy #science #GravitationalLenses #ESA #space #CitizenScience #ESAEuclid #Zooniverse

Space Warps is back! Do you want to join forces with Euclid Consortium scientists and discover gravitational lenses that no human has ever seen before?

We’re announcing the next Space Warps Citizen Science campaign with Euclid data – now previewing images from Data Release 1. Here is how to become part of the project:

https://www.euclid-ec.org/space-warps-euclid-dr1/

#astronomy #science #GravitationalLenses #ESA #space #CitizenScience #ESAEuclid #Zooniverse

Space Warps is back! Do you want to join forces with Euclid Consortium scientists and discover gravitational lenses that no human has ever seen before?

We’re announcing the next Space Warps Citizen Science campaign with Euclid data – now previewing images from Data Release 1. Here is how to become part of the project:

https://www.euclid-ec.org/space-warps-euclid-dr1/

#astronomy #science #GravitationalLenses #ESA #space #CitizenScience #ESAEuclid #Zooniverse

Euclid Space Warps – help the hunt for galaxy-galaxy lenses!

I’m sharing the text of a press release from Euclid here to encourage readers to join in this new Zooniverse project.

–o–

In brief

With the launch of Space Warps, a new citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, you can now join in the search to find rare and elusive strong gravitational lenses in never-before-seen images captured by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The project aims at shining a light on dark matter in galaxies and providing clues about mysterious dark energy.

In-depth

Warps in spacetime do not only show up in science fiction movies like Interstellar. In real life, we can see the warping effect that gravity has on spacetime in the form of gravitational lensing.

The enormous gravity of a massive object – such as a galaxy or cluster of galaxies – distorts the shape of spacetime and can bend the light rays coming from a distant galaxy behind. By warping spacetime, the foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass.

Light from the background object that would be obscured doesn’t travel in a straight line anymore. Instead, it curves around the intervening mass, often producing multiple images, stretched arcs, or even a complete ring known as ‘Einstein ring’, like the one recently discovered by Euclid.

Strong gravitational lenses offer a striking demonstration of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, showing that matter in the Universe can act as a natural telescope, bringing distant objects into sight.

ESA’s Euclid telescope is revolutionising the studies of strong gravitational lensing by providing very sensitive imaging over large swaths of the sky in unprecedented detail. This is exactly what is needed to identify rare gravitational lenses.

In March 2025, 500 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses were found nestled in just the first 0.04% of Euclid data, most of them previously unknown. This pioneering catalogue was created thanks to the combined effort from citizen scientists, artificial intelligence (AI) and researchers.

Early glimpse of new Euclid images

As Euclid continues its survey, sending around 100 GB of data back to Earth every day, ESA and the Euclid Consortium once again need help from citizen scientists to identify strong gravitational lenses in a large data set.

For this, the Space Warps team has launched a citizen science project based on new Euclid images, which will be part of the future Euclid Data Release 1. While this data is not public yet, by participating in this new citizen science project you can get an early glimpse of these new images of galaxies captured by the telescope.

For this project, you will be inspecting new high quality imaging data from Euclid in which many previously unknown strong lenses are hiding. About three hundred thousand images pre-selected by AI algorithms will be shown, which are fine-tuned with the results from the initial citizen-science Euclid strong lens search. These are the highest ranked candidates from a whopping 72 million galaxies from DR1 that were classified by the AI algorithms. Scientists expect that this exquisite high-quality data will reveal more than 10 000 new lenses.

What can we learn from strong lenses

The Euclid mission explores how the Universe has expanded and how its structure has changed through cosmic history using mainly two methods: weak lensing and baryonic acoustic oscillations. From this, scientists can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Strong gravitational lenses can also provide insights into these central questions. For example, strong lensing features can ‘weigh’ individual galaxies and clusters of galaxies. This reveals the total matter (whether dark or light) and traces the distribution of dark matter. By studying strong lenses across cosmic time, scientists can trace the expansion of the Universe and its apparent acceleration. This will provide additional insight into the role of dark energy.

“We’ve already seen the success of combining AI with visual inspection by citizen volunteers and scientists on Space Warps, efficiently finding hundreds of high‑probability lens candidates in an initial small Euclid search in 2024”, explains Aprajita Verma, Space Warps’ co-founder and project lead at the University of Oxford, UK.
“In this brand new DR1 data, 30 times larger than the initial search and together with our improved AI algorithms, we are expecting to find more than 10 000 high quality lens candidates. This is more than four times the number of lenses than we have been able to find since the first gravitational lens was discovered nearly 50 years ago.”

This step-change is possible thanks to Euclid. The mission can map large areas of the sky with unique sharpness, an ideal combination for finding rare objects like strong gravitational lenses.

“We can’t wait to see what we will find within this unprecedented dataset. Join us on Space Warps to take part in this exciting search!” concludes Aprajita.

About Euclid
Euclid was launched in July 2023 and started its routine science observations on 14 February 2024. The goal of the mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientist from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada, and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

Euclid Space Warps – help the hunt for galaxy-galaxy lenses!

I’m sharing the text of a press release from Euclid here to encourage readers to join in this new Zooniverse project.

–o–

In brief

With the launch of Space Warps, a new citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, you can now join in the search to find rare and elusive strong gravitational lenses in never-before-seen images captured by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The project aims at shining a light on dark matter in galaxies and providing clues about mysterious dark energy.

In-depth

Warps in spacetime do not only show up in science fiction movies like Interstellar. In real life, we can see the warping effect that gravity has on spacetime in the form of gravitational lensing.

The enormous gravity of a massive object – such as a galaxy or cluster of galaxies – distorts the shape of spacetime and can bend the light rays coming from a distant galaxy behind. By warping spacetime, the foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass.

Light from the background object that would be obscured doesn’t travel in a straight line anymore. Instead, it curves around the intervening mass, often producing multiple images, stretched arcs, or even a complete ring known as ‘Einstein ring’, like the one recently discovered by Euclid.

Strong gravitational lenses offer a striking demonstration of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, showing that matter in the Universe can act as a natural telescope, bringing distant objects into sight.

ESA’s Euclid telescope is revolutionising the studies of strong gravitational lensing by providing very sensitive imaging over large swaths of the sky in unprecedented detail. This is exactly what is needed to identify rare gravitational lenses.

In March 2025, 500 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses were found nestled in just the first 0.04% of Euclid data, most of them previously unknown. This pioneering catalogue was created thanks to the combined effort from citizen scientists, artificial intelligence (AI) and researchers.

Early glimpse of new Euclid images

As Euclid continues its survey, sending around 100 GB of data back to Earth every day, ESA and the Euclid Consortium once again need help from citizen scientists to identify strong gravitational lenses in a large data set.

For this, the Space Warps team has launched a citizen science project based on new Euclid images, which will be part of the future Euclid Data Release 1. While this data is not public yet, by participating in this new citizen science project you can get an early glimpse of these new images of galaxies captured by the telescope.

For this project, you will be inspecting new high quality imaging data from Euclid in which many previously unknown strong lenses are hiding. About three hundred thousand images pre-selected by AI algorithms will be shown, which are fine-tuned with the results from the initial citizen-science Euclid strong lens search. These are the highest ranked candidates from a whopping 72 million galaxies from DR1 that were classified by the AI algorithms. Scientists expect that this exquisite high-quality data will reveal more than 10 000 new lenses.

What can we learn from strong lenses

The Euclid mission explores how the Universe has expanded and how its structure has changed through cosmic history using mainly two methods: weak lensing and baryonic acoustic oscillations. From this, scientists can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Strong gravitational lenses can also provide insights into these central questions. For example, strong lensing features can ‘weigh’ individual galaxies and clusters of galaxies. This reveals the total matter (whether dark or light) and traces the distribution of dark matter. By studying strong lenses across cosmic time, scientists can trace the expansion of the Universe and its apparent acceleration. This will provide additional insight into the role of dark energy.

“We’ve already seen the success of combining AI with visual inspection by citizen volunteers and scientists on Space Warps, efficiently finding hundreds of high‑probability lens candidates in an initial small Euclid search in 2024”, explains Aprajita Verma, Space Warps’ co-founder and project lead at the University of Oxford, UK.
“In this brand new DR1 data, 30 times larger than the initial search and together with our improved AI algorithms, we are expecting to find more than 10 000 high quality lens candidates. This is more than four times the number of lenses than we have been able to find since the first gravitational lens was discovered nearly 50 years ago.”

This step-change is possible thanks to Euclid. The mission can map large areas of the sky with unique sharpness, an ideal combination for finding rare objects like strong gravitational lenses.

“We can’t wait to see what we will find within this unprecedented dataset. Join us on Space Warps to take part in this exciting search!” concludes Aprajita.

About Euclid
Euclid was launched in July 2023 and started its routine science observations on 14 February 2024. The goal of the mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientist from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada, and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

Euclid Space Warps – help the hunt for galaxy-galaxy lenses!

I’m sharing the text of a press release from Euclid here to encourage readers to join in this new Zooniverse project.

–o–

In brief

With the launch of Space Warps, a new citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, you can now join in the search to find rare and elusive strong gravitational lenses in never-before-seen images captured by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The project aims at shining a light on dark matter in galaxies and providing clues about mysterious dark energy.

In-depth

Warps in spacetime do not only show up in science fiction movies like Interstellar. In real life, we can see the warping effect that gravity has on spacetime in the form of gravitational lensing.

The enormous gravity of a massive object – such as a galaxy or cluster of galaxies – distorts the shape of spacetime and can bend the light rays coming from a distant galaxy behind. By warping spacetime, the foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass.

Light from the background object that would be obscured doesn’t travel in a straight line anymore. Instead, it curves around the intervening mass, often producing multiple images, stretched arcs, or even a complete ring known as ‘Einstein ring’, like the one recently discovered by Euclid.

Strong gravitational lenses offer a striking demonstration of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, showing that matter in the Universe can act as a natural telescope, bringing distant objects into sight.

ESA’s Euclid telescope is revolutionising the studies of strong gravitational lensing by providing very sensitive imaging over large swaths of the sky in unprecedented detail. This is exactly what is needed to identify rare gravitational lenses.

In March 2025, 500 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses were found nestled in just the first 0.04% of Euclid data, most of them previously unknown. This pioneering catalogue was created thanks to the combined effort from citizen scientists, artificial intelligence (AI) and researchers.

Early glimpse of new Euclid images

As Euclid continues its survey, sending around 100 GB of data back to Earth every day, ESA and the Euclid Consortium once again need help from citizen scientists to identify strong gravitational lenses in a large data set.

For this, the Space Warps team has launched a citizen science project based on new Euclid images, which will be part of the future Euclid Data Release 1. While this data is not public yet, by participating in this new citizen science project you can get an early glimpse of these new images of galaxies captured by the telescope.

For this project, you will be inspecting new high quality imaging data from Euclid in which many previously unknown strong lenses are hiding. About three hundred thousand images pre-selected by AI algorithms will be shown, which are fine-tuned with the results from the initial citizen-science Euclid strong lens search. These are the highest ranked candidates from a whopping 72 million galaxies from DR1 that were classified by the AI algorithms. Scientists expect that this exquisite high-quality data will reveal more than 10 000 new lenses.

What can we learn from strong lenses

The Euclid mission explores how the Universe has expanded and how its structure has changed through cosmic history using mainly two methods: weak lensing and baryonic acoustic oscillations. From this, scientists can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Strong gravitational lenses can also provide insights into these central questions. For example, strong lensing features can ‘weigh’ individual galaxies and clusters of galaxies. This reveals the total matter (whether dark or light) and traces the distribution of dark matter. By studying strong lenses across cosmic time, scientists can trace the expansion of the Universe and its apparent acceleration. This will provide additional insight into the role of dark energy.

“We’ve already seen the success of combining AI with visual inspection by citizen volunteers and scientists on Space Warps, efficiently finding hundreds of high‑probability lens candidates in an initial small Euclid search in 2024”, explains Aprajita Verma, Space Warps’ co-founder and project lead at the University of Oxford, UK.
“In this brand new DR1 data, 30 times larger than the initial search and together with our improved AI algorithms, we are expecting to find more than 10 000 high quality lens candidates. This is more than four times the number of lenses than we have been able to find since the first gravitational lens was discovered nearly 50 years ago.”

This step-change is possible thanks to Euclid. The mission can map large areas of the sky with unique sharpness, an ideal combination for finding rare objects like strong gravitational lenses.

“We can’t wait to see what we will find within this unprecedented dataset. Join us on Space Warps to take part in this exciting search!” concludes Aprajita.

About Euclid
Euclid was launched in July 2023 and started its routine science observations on 14 February 2024. The goal of the mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientist from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada, and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

Euclid Space Warps – help the hunt for galaxy-galaxy lenses!

I’m sharing the text of a press release from Euclid here to encourage readers to join in this new Zooniverse project.

–o–

In brief

With the launch of Space Warps, a new citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, you can now join in the search to find rare and elusive strong gravitational lenses in never-before-seen images captured by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The project aims at shining a light on dark matter in galaxies and providing clues about mysterious dark energy.

In-depth

Warps in spacetime do not only show up in science fiction movies like Interstellar. In real life, we can see the warping effect that gravity has on spacetime in the form of gravitational lensing.

The enormous gravity of a massive object – such as a galaxy or cluster of galaxies – distorts the shape of spacetime and can bend the light rays coming from a distant galaxy behind. By warping spacetime, the foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass.

Light from the background object that would be obscured doesn’t travel in a straight line anymore. Instead, it curves around the intervening mass, often producing multiple images, stretched arcs, or even a complete ring known as ‘Einstein ring’, like the one recently discovered by Euclid.

Strong gravitational lenses offer a striking demonstration of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, showing that matter in the Universe can act as a natural telescope, bringing distant objects into sight.

ESA’s Euclid telescope is revolutionising the studies of strong gravitational lensing by providing very sensitive imaging over large swaths of the sky in unprecedented detail. This is exactly what is needed to identify rare gravitational lenses.

In March 2025, 500 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses were found nestled in just the first 0.04% of Euclid data, most of them previously unknown. This pioneering catalogue was created thanks to the combined effort from citizen scientists, artificial intelligence (AI) and researchers.

Early glimpse of new Euclid images

As Euclid continues its survey, sending around 100 GB of data back to Earth every day, ESA and the Euclid Consortium once again need help from citizen scientists to identify strong gravitational lenses in a large data set.

For this, the Space Warps team has launched a citizen science project based on new Euclid images, which will be part of the future Euclid Data Release 1. While this data is not public yet, by participating in this new citizen science project you can get an early glimpse of these new images of galaxies captured by the telescope.

For this project, you will be inspecting new high quality imaging data from Euclid in which many previously unknown strong lenses are hiding. About three hundred thousand images pre-selected by AI algorithms will be shown, which are fine-tuned with the results from the initial citizen-science Euclid strong lens search. These are the highest ranked candidates from a whopping 72 million galaxies from DR1 that were classified by the AI algorithms. Scientists expect that this exquisite high-quality data will reveal more than 10 000 new lenses.

What can we learn from strong lenses

The Euclid mission explores how the Universe has expanded and how its structure has changed through cosmic history using mainly two methods: weak lensing and baryonic acoustic oscillations. From this, scientists can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Strong gravitational lenses can also provide insights into these central questions. For example, strong lensing features can ‘weigh’ individual galaxies and clusters of galaxies. This reveals the total matter (whether dark or light) and traces the distribution of dark matter. By studying strong lenses across cosmic time, scientists can trace the expansion of the Universe and its apparent acceleration. This will provide additional insight into the role of dark energy.

“We’ve already seen the success of combining AI with visual inspection by citizen volunteers and scientists on Space Warps, efficiently finding hundreds of high‑probability lens candidates in an initial small Euclid search in 2024”, explains Aprajita Verma, Space Warps’ co-founder and project lead at the University of Oxford, UK.
“In this brand new DR1 data, 30 times larger than the initial search and together with our improved AI algorithms, we are expecting to find more than 10 000 high quality lens candidates. This is more than four times the number of lenses than we have been able to find since the first gravitational lens was discovered nearly 50 years ago.”

This step-change is possible thanks to Euclid. The mission can map large areas of the sky with unique sharpness, an ideal combination for finding rare objects like strong gravitational lenses.

“We can’t wait to see what we will find within this unprecedented dataset. Join us on Space Warps to take part in this exciting search!” concludes Aprajita.

About Euclid
Euclid was launched in July 2023 and started its routine science observations on 14 February 2024. The goal of the mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientist from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada, and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

Euclid Space Warps – help the hunt for galaxy-galaxy lenses!

I’m sharing the text of a press release from Euclid here to encourage readers to join in this new Zooniverse project.

–o–

In brief

With the launch of Space Warps, a new citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, you can now join in the search to find rare and elusive strong gravitational lenses in never-before-seen images captured by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. The project aims at shining a light on dark matter in galaxies and providing clues about mysterious dark energy.

In-depth

Warps in spacetime do not only show up in science fiction movies like Interstellar. In real life, we can see the warping effect that gravity has on spacetime in the form of gravitational lensing.

The enormous gravity of a massive object – such as a galaxy or cluster of galaxies – distorts the shape of spacetime and can bend the light rays coming from a distant galaxy behind. By warping spacetime, the foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass.

Light from the background object that would be obscured doesn’t travel in a straight line anymore. Instead, it curves around the intervening mass, often producing multiple images, stretched arcs, or even a complete ring known as ‘Einstein ring’, like the one recently discovered by Euclid.

Strong gravitational lenses offer a striking demonstration of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, showing that matter in the Universe can act as a natural telescope, bringing distant objects into sight.

ESA’s Euclid telescope is revolutionising the studies of strong gravitational lensing by providing very sensitive imaging over large swaths of the sky in unprecedented detail. This is exactly what is needed to identify rare gravitational lenses.

In March 2025, 500 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses were found nestled in just the first 0.04% of Euclid data, most of them previously unknown. This pioneering catalogue was created thanks to the combined effort from citizen scientists, artificial intelligence (AI) and researchers.

Early glimpse of new Euclid images

As Euclid continues its survey, sending around 100 GB of data back to Earth every day, ESA and the Euclid Consortium once again need help from citizen scientists to identify strong gravitational lenses in a large data set.

For this, the Space Warps team has launched a citizen science project based on new Euclid images, which will be part of the future Euclid Data Release 1. While this data is not public yet, by participating in this new citizen science project you can get an early glimpse of these new images of galaxies captured by the telescope.

For this project, you will be inspecting new high quality imaging data from Euclid in which many previously unknown strong lenses are hiding. About three hundred thousand images pre-selected by AI algorithms will be shown, which are fine-tuned with the results from the initial citizen-science Euclid strong lens search. These are the highest ranked candidates from a whopping 72 million galaxies from DR1 that were classified by the AI algorithms. Scientists expect that this exquisite high-quality data will reveal more than 10 000 new lenses.

What can we learn from strong lenses

The Euclid mission explores how the Universe has expanded and how its structure has changed through cosmic history using mainly two methods: weak lensing and baryonic acoustic oscillations. From this, scientists can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Strong gravitational lenses can also provide insights into these central questions. For example, strong lensing features can ‘weigh’ individual galaxies and clusters of galaxies. This reveals the total matter (whether dark or light) and traces the distribution of dark matter. By studying strong lenses across cosmic time, scientists can trace the expansion of the Universe and its apparent acceleration. This will provide additional insight into the role of dark energy.

“We’ve already seen the success of combining AI with visual inspection by citizen volunteers and scientists on Space Warps, efficiently finding hundreds of high‑probability lens candidates in an initial small Euclid search in 2024”, explains Aprajita Verma, Space Warps’ co-founder and project lead at the University of Oxford, UK.
“In this brand new DR1 data, 30 times larger than the initial search and together with our improved AI algorithms, we are expecting to find more than 10 000 high quality lens candidates. This is more than four times the number of lenses than we have been able to find since the first gravitational lens was discovered nearly 50 years ago.”

This step-change is possible thanks to Euclid. The mission can map large areas of the sky with unique sharpness, an ideal combination for finding rare objects like strong gravitational lenses.

“We can’t wait to see what we will find within this unprecedented dataset. Join us on Space Warps to take part in this exciting search!” concludes Aprajita.

About Euclid
Euclid was launched in July 2023 and started its routine science observations on 14 February 2024. The goal of the mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientist from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada, and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

🔭 Citizen science finds brown dwarfs! Volunteers in Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 sifted through WISE archive imagery and helped identify ~3,000 new motion-confirmed L and T dwarf candidates near the Sun. Open data + human pattern-spotting = a fresh haul of cool stellar neighbours.

📅 April 2026
🔗 https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01323

#CitizenScience #Astronomy #DataScience #Zooniverse

For the science-interested, early-rising secondary school student in your life: a special Earth Day citizen science session w. Megan Li from UCLA SETI & Hari Mogoșanu astrobiology.nz.

Megan leads a #Zooniverse project inviting the public to help analyse Green Bank Telescope radio data for signs of technology beyond Earth.

Aimed at secondary school students. Curious others welcome too. 22nd April Europe, N./S. America; 23rd NZ: Aotearoa breakfast!

https://events.humanitix.com/earth-day-seti-event #SETI #CitizenScience

We recently joined Astronomers Without Borders for a live conversation during Global Astronomy Month with Andrew Fazekas and Laura Trouille, #Zooniverse Principal Investigator and VP of Science Engagement at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, highlighting the breadth and impact of Zooniverse’s astronomy projects: https://daily.zooniverse.org/2026/04/13/zooniverse-in-conversation-astronomers-without-borders/

WeDigBio starts today! Comment and like if you are participating! #wedigbio #biodiversity #communityscience #communityscientist #naturalhistory #science #scienceforall #scistarter #scienceforeveryone #scienceforeveryone #scienceisforeveryone #scistarter #zooniverse

Participate: https://scistarter.org/citizensciencemonth-participate

WeDigBio starts today! Comment and like if you are participating! #wedigbio #biodiversity #communityscience #communityscientist #naturalhistory #science #scienceforall #scistarter #scienceforeveryone #scienceforeveryone #scienceisforeveryone #scistarter #zooniverse

Participate: https://scistarter.org/citizensciencemonth-participate

WeDigBio starts today! Comment and like if you are participating! #wedigbio #biodiversity #communityscience #communityscientist #naturalhistory #science #scienceforall #scistarter #scienceforeveryone #scienceforeveryone #scienceisforeveryone #scistarter #zooniverse

Participate: https://scistarter.org/citizensciencemonth-participate

WeDigBio starts today! Comment and like if you are participating! #wedigbio #biodiversity #communityscience #communityscientist #naturalhistory #science #scienceforall #scistarter #scienceforeveryone #scienceforeveryone #scienceisforeveryone #scistarter #zooniverse

Participate: https://scistarter.org/citizensciencemonth-participate

WeDigBio starts today! Comment and like if you are participating! #wedigbio #biodiversity #communityscience #communityscientist #naturalhistory #science #scienceforall #scistarter #scienceforeveryone #scienceforeveryone #scienceisforeveryone #scistarter #zooniverse

Participate: https://scistarter.org/citizensciencemonth-participate

Faster scientific discovery-With large datasets available digitally, researchers can use tools like AI and data modeling to discover new patterns, relationships, and even identify new species more efficiently. Participate in a virtual event: https://scistarter.org/citizensciencemonth-participate
#communityscience, #scistarter, #ScienceForEveryone #OpenScienceForAll #EveryoneCanDoScience #globaltcn, #fieldmuseum, #zooniverse

Block your calendars! #WeDigBio April 9th through the 12th, 2026 is just under 2 weeks away! Mobilize 1000's of biodiversity data records! Register your event or find where to participate #communityscience, #scistarter, #ScienceForEveryone #OpenScienceForAll #EveryoneCanDoScience #globaltcn, #scistarter, #fieldmuseum, #zooniverse
@idigbio @nfromn @eurotaxonomy @the_zooniverse

I got an email today from one of the citizen science projects.

"The project data is currently being used by the UN Logistics Cluster in planning meetings, when organising humanitarian aid routes. Understanding where the wadis are located helps those on the ground to plan the most effective routes, and anticipate locations of flooding for the rainy season, beginning in June. This data is extremely helpful to gain an understanding of the most effective route for these long journeys, thus saving time and costly fuel.

For now, this project has ended. However, we are working in the background to prepare future Planetary Response Network projects and will make sure to keep you updated!

If you are in distress and need or want support, here is a list of international crisis support hotlines so you can get support wherever you are in the world.

Thanks,
Alice and the Planetary Response Network team"

Profound sort of feeling.

#CitizenScience #Sudan #UnitedNations #Humanitarian #PlanetaryResponseNetwork #Zooniverse

👩‍🔬✨ "Galaxy Zoo" boldly invites you to contribute to scientific progress using the highly sophisticated tool of... clicking your mouse! 🖱️🌌 The project has bravely migrated to Zooniverse's new architecture, a move so monumental you'll need binoculars to glimpse the benefits. 🔭🚀
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo #GalaxyZoo #CitizenScience #Zooniverse #Astronomy #TechInnovation #ScienceCommunity #HackerNews #ngated

I recently had the privilege to attend a webinar where Briana Giasullo, librarian at Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, presented to the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine. She showed her #digitisation workflow for field notebooks & creating corrected OCR files via #AI & #Zooniverse. #BHL

NASA: New Way You Can Discover Asteroids. “Want to discover an asteroid, but don’t have your own telescope? Don’t worry! NASA’s International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) team has just introduced a new online project on the Zooniverse platform where you can help astronomers identify new asteroids.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/30/nasa-new-way-you-can-discover-asteroids/

Here's an incredible opportunity to help save thousands in a natural disaster by spending a little time looking at images. https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/alicemead/planetary-response-network-hurricane-melissa-2025/classify
#zooniverse #hurricane #hurricanemelissa #citizenscience

Hab eine neue Beschäftigung für Zwischendurch gefunden! Wetterdaten auf dem 19. Jahrhundert digitalisieren xD So kann ich vollkommen ohne Einstiegshürde wieder zumindest ein ganz kein wenig mit Meteorologie machen und unterstütze damit sogar die Klimaforschung :D

#zooniverse
#redata
#collaboration
#klima

Calling all Irish weather and climate enthusiasts! 

Just a quick post to share an opportunity to get involved in a bit of Citizen Science. The inestimable Zooniverse has teamed up with Met Éireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service, in a project called Irish Weather Rescue. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help digitize historical weather records that currently only exist on paper. Currently only a few percent of the available records have been digitised.

The project aims to provide access to valuable data that will improve our understanding of how rainfall patterns have changed over longer timescales and provide context for the changes we see in our current climate and possible future climate. Met Éireann’s archive contains an extensive collection of historical weather observations that include meteorological registers, rainfall registers, climatological reports, weather diaries, monthly weather bulletins and maps. These handwritten paper records are at risk of being lost due to the vulnerability of the original paper documents. By creating a digital copy of these records and extracting the data contained in them we can use the data to monitor climate variability and change, support effective climate risk management and improve climate model projections.

To read more about the project and/or volunteer, see here.

#CitizenScience #climateChange #MetÉireann #Weather #Zooniverse

Northern Arizona University: With new NAU research project, everyone’s an Antarctic scientist. “Working with Lumberjack Ph.D. student Gavin Moriarty, Salvatore will work with ecological researchers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) of Antarctica and the crowdsourcing platform Zooniverse to create a citizen science project aimed at measuring environmental change on the continent over the last […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/05/northern-arizona-university-with-new-nau-research-project-everyones-an-antarctic-scientist/

If you liked this astonishing cloudy panorama by @stim3on (https://fosstodon.org/@stim3on/114971755866105031), there's a relevant current #Zooniverse project: "Cloudspotting on Mars: Shapes" (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/matteocrismani/cloudspotting-on-mars-shapes)

It's about roughly identifying cloud shapes and formations on #MavenMission ultraviolet mosaics. It's not a simple task, but a good one to grasp how much activity there is in the Mars atmosphere.

Detroit Free Press: Decades of Michigan lake data, hidden in filing cabinets, digitized with volunteer help. “The 78 years of data on 1,300 Michigan lakes are now fully digitized and available to researchers and the public at the University of Michigan’s Deep Blue data repository. Resurrected from file cabinet drawers, the data is now being used to drive new research.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/18/detroit-free-press-decades-of-michigan-lake-data-hidden-in-filing-cabinets-digitized-with-volunteer-help/

✨ You can make astronomical discoveries without being a researcher 🔭

Join our citizen science project “Einstein@Home: Pulsar Seekers.”

➡️ https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rsengar/einstein-at-home-pulsar-seekers

All you need is an internet connection, a device with a browser, or the Zooniverse app and you're ready to discover new pulsars.

You will help classify graphical representations of the results of our distributed computing project @einsteinathome.

#CitizenScience #Zooniverse #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Pulsar #NeutronStars

Bei unserem Citizen-Science-Projekt „Einstein@Home: Pulsar Seekers“ könnt ihr uns helfen, neue astronomische Entdeckungen zu machen.

➡️ https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rsengar/einstein-at-home-pulsar-seekers?language=de

Ihr braucht eine Internetverbindung, ein Endgerät mit einem Browser oder die „Zooniverse App“ und schon kann's losgehen!

Dann könnt ihr neue Pulsare entdecken, indem ihr grafische Darstellungen der Ergebnisse unseres verteilten Rechenprojekts @einsteinathome klassifiziert.

Pulsare sind die Überreste schwerer Sterne, die am Ende ihrer Existenz als Supernova explodiert sind. Für die Astrophysik sind sie wertvoll, weil sie physikalische Extrembedingungen bieten, die sich in irdischen Laboren nicht herstellen lassen.

#CitizenScience #Mitforschen #Zooniverse #Astronomie #Astrophysik #Pulsar #Neutronenstern

Zooniverse ‘major system outage' status update #zooniverse #CitizenScience https://status.zooniverse.org/

Were happy to announce #Euclid #SpaceWarps - our first citizen science search for gravitational lenses in #ESAEuclid data. Curious how mass bends light-paths? Want to see gravity in action? Join our #CitizenScience project on the #Zooniverse:

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/aprajita/space-warps-esa-euclid

#astronomy #space #science #cosmology #astrodon

The Social Lives of Literary Characters [pdf 11pp] #CitizenScience #Zooniverse #literature https://panoptes-uploads.zooniverse.org/project_attached_image/9526ad63-6676-42a0-bac3-073fe177ce5b.pdf

new zooniverse project!

...to understand how Living Sailors navigate the vast global ocean

Another really cool thing about this project is that it's using iNaturalist observations!

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rebeccarhelm/the-living-sailor?

#nature #citizenScience #zooniverse #inaturalist #livingsailors #ocean
(photo credits: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rebeccarhelm/the-living-sailor/talk/subjects/98959741)

Does anyone here contribute to projects on #zooniverse? I took part in the Foundling Hospital project a few years ago, then recently digitisation of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery accession records, being of a historical bent. It does help having a bit of inside knowledge on that sort of thing.

I'm now working on Connect with Arctic Archives: Unraveling Greenland's Weather History, digitising historical weather records. Have a look if it's your thing:

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/johandmi/arctic-archives-unraveling-greenlands-weather-history/

Macht mit bei der Suche nach Pulsaren: Helft Forschenden von @einsteinathome diese erstaunlichen kosmischen Leuchttürme zu finden!

Nehmt an unserem Zooniverse-Projekt „Einstein@Home: Pulsar Seekers“ teil

➡️ https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rsengar/einstein-at-home-pulsar-seekers?language=de

Auch auf der Zooniverse-App für Mobilgeräte verfügbar.

#Zooniverse #CitizenScience #Pulsare #Astronomie

L’oggetto di Hanny

All’interno della costellazione del Leone Minore si può osservare un raro oggetto celeste scoperto nel 2007 dall’insegnante olandese Hanny van Arkel. Questa stava partecipando al progetto di citizen science Galaxy Zoo, un progetto di classificazione delle galassie promosso da Zooniverse (a tal proposito vi ricordiamo del progetto dei Sunspots detectives). A un certo punto Hanny si imbatté in uno strano sbuffo azzurro presente nella foto della galassia IC 2497 scattata dallo Sloan Digital Sky Survey. L’oggetto, denominato Hanny’s Voorwerp, oggetto di Hanny in olandese, è probabilmente una nube di gas estremamente calda e molto ionizzata. Probabilmente sta riflettendo la luce di una quasar al centro di IC 2497 e ora estinta, motivo per cui è stato denominato anche come eco ionizatta di una quasar. Studi nella banda delle onde radio suggeriscono, poi, che questo oggetto stia interagendo con un deflusso di gas proveniente dal nucleo della galassia, dando vita al processo di formazione delle stelle.

post di @ulaulaman – @[email protected]

#costellazioni #HannyVanArkel #LeoneMinore #quasar #Zooniverse

Tausende Zeichnungen von Angelo Secchi aus dem 19. Jahrhundert enthalten Informationen über die historische Sonnenaktivität. Werde #SunspotDetective und hilf Forscher*innen des #MPSGoettingen und #INAF, die codierten #Sonnenfleck-Tageszahlen zu finden!

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/teolixx/sunspot-detectives

https://www.mps.mpg.de/7901321/news_publication_21636825_transferred

@maxplanckgesellschaft @mediainaf @damagedonegr

#CitizenScience #Zooniverse #Sonne #Sonnenphysik #Astronomie #Astrodon

Thousands of 19th century drawings by Angelo Secchi hold information on historical solar activity. Help researchers at #MPSGoettingen and #INAF find the encoded daily #sunspot numbers and become a #SunspotDetective!

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/teolixx/sunspot-detectives

https://www.mps.mpg.de/7901574/news_publication_21640830_transferred

@maxplanckgesellschaft @mediainaf @damagedonegr

#CitizenScience #Zooniverse #SolarPhysics #Space #Astrodon

Hello and welcome to my #introduction 👋I am a mid-thirties, late diagnosed #ADHDer, with an #autistic partner. Coming up to my diagnosis 1-year anniversary 🥳 and learning lots every day, having regular “aha” moments. I work PT #burnout in a library and spend my free time trying to coral my unruly curiosity fairly unsuccessfully.

A snippet of my many waxing and waning interests include: #cacti #succulents #cats #dogs #budgies #astronomy #zoology #economics #tech #psychology #neurodiversity #spoontheory #streetart #modernart #arthistory #sculpture #crafts #museums #artgalleries #urbanspaces #heritage #architecture #snailmail #books #libraries #archives #forteana #documentaries #podcasts #zooniverse #googlecrowdsource #miscellanea

Hello and welcome to my #introduction 👋I am a mid-thirties, late diagnosed #ADHDer, with an #autistic partner. Coming up to my diagnosis 1-year anniversary 🥳 and learning lots every day, having regular “aha” moments. I work PT #burnout in a library and spend my free time trying to coral my unruly curiosity fairly unsuccessfully.

A snippet of my many waxing and waning interests include: #cacti #succulents #cats #dogs #budgies #astronomy #zoology #economics #tech #psychology #neurodiversity #spoontheory #streetart #modernart #arthistory #sculpture #crafts #museums #artgalleries #urbanspaces #heritage #architecture #snailmail #books #libraries #archives #forteana #documentaries #podcasts #zooniverse #googlecrowdsource #miscellanea

Hello and welcome to my #introduction 👋I am a mid-thirties, late diagnosed #ADHDer, with an #autistic partner. Coming up to my diagnosis 1-year anniversary 🥳 and learning lots every day, having regular “aha” moments. I work PT #burnout in a library and spend my free time trying to coral my unruly curiosity fairly unsuccessfully.

A snippet of my many waxing and waning interests include: #cacti #succulents #cats #dogs #budgies #astronomy #zoology #economics #tech #psychology #neurodiversity #spoontheory #streetart #modernart #arthistory #sculpture #crafts #museums #artgalleries #urbanspaces #heritage #architecture #snailmail #books #libraries #archives #forteana #documentaries #podcasts #zooniverse #googlecrowdsource #miscellanea

Hello and welcome to my #introduction 👋I am a mid-thirties, late diagnosed #ADHDer, with an #autistic partner. Coming up to my diagnosis 1-year anniversary 🥳 and learning lots every day, having regular “aha” moments. I work PT #burnout in a library and spend my free time trying to coral my unruly curiosity fairly unsuccessfully.

A snippet of my many waxing and waning interests include: #cacti #succulents #cats #dogs #budgies #astronomy #zoology #economics #tech #psychology #neurodiversity #spoontheory #streetart #modernart #arthistory #sculpture #crafts #museums #artgalleries #urbanspaces #heritage #architecture #snailmail #books #libraries #archives #forteana #documentaries #podcasts #zooniverse #googlecrowdsource #miscellanea