Crowdsourcing Science with Zooniverse and NASA at the NEEMO-15 Underwater Asteroid Mission

open.NASA.gov: Analyzing the vast amount of data that NASA brings back from its missions is an enormous task. In order to improve collaboration internally, as well as engage citizens in NASA’s mission, the Open Government team is experimenting with different ways to process mission data quickly. The NASA OpenGov team has enlisted the help of established NASA partners Zooniverse and Vizzuality, who have pioneered the analysis of large datasets through crowdsourcing, using the power of elegant interfaces, to engage citizen scientists in the NEEMO mission.

Using a new platform which takes a square kilometer of ocean-bottom imagery and parses it out into an easily navigable, compelling user interface, we humbly ask you to help find scientifically relevant items, in order to allow us to outline them for a broad representation of the reef. Then, traverse planning scientists can then use this aggegated data to target, or confirm the interest items for further study. We can’t do this kind of science on our own. We need your help today and again when we send humans beyond the surly bonds of Earth.

The spashdown of the crew on Thursday will also mark the official launch of our beta site at neemo.zooniverse.org, part of the new Zooniverse Labs arena. Please keep in mind that we are still in beta for the site, and the site may be down periodically. If you find this to be the case, check out the NEEMO mission page for a while and come back soon!

More information on open.NASA at at Crowdsourcing Science at NEEMO-15