A new web-based project called “Galaxy Zoo” is asking the public to help classify a million galaxies that have been imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The processed information will help scientists understand how the cosmos evolved. Galaxy Zoo expects about 30,000 people to participate in the identifications. The project is based on an idea from NASA’s Stardust@home project, which asked the public to identify interstellar dust grains the Stardust spacecraft returned.

Kevin Schawinski of Oxford University helped create the Galaxy Zoo. He says the human brain is better than a computer at pattern-recognition tasks like this. Participants can spend 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or 5 hours using the site. Any contribution will be invaluable. Sir Patrick Moore, one of the world’s best-known amateur astronomers, says non-professionals have always been deeply involved in studying the sky. He believes amateurs will be very useful in processing this information.

To become a participant and help identify images, log onto www.galaxyzoo.org. There is a 3-minute instruction, followed by galaxy images. Participants decide the galaxy’s shape, if it’s spiral or elliptical. If it’s a spiral galaxy, the direction of its rotation has to be decided too.