Not So Tiny Bubbles

Citizen scientists-- amateur astronomers, in other words-- have used data from NASA's Spitzer Telescope to find thousands more bubbles blown in the gas and dust clouds by hot young stars of our galaxy than previously known, suggesting that the rate of new star formation in the Milky Way is much greater than realized. The research was done under the auspices of the online Milky Way Project, which gives the general public the opportunity to work with actual data and meaningfully contribute to science.

The human brain still beats computers at some things, like pattern recognition. In the complex, chaotic images of the galactic center and spiral arm plane, computers missed bubbles that overlapped, or that were otherwise partially hidden. Human brains, however, are hardwired to recognize patterns, and they discerned many more bubbles, giving astronomers a new perspective on the nature of our home galaxy.