About
Ever had a moment when you thought your computer was smarter than you? Well, now is your chance to teach your computer a thing or two!
On September 14th 2015, a century after Einstein predicted the existence of ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) made the first direct detection of this elusive phenomenon. This discovery is the first of many that will give us a whole new way to explore our Universe. However, LIGO needs your help!
Being the most sensitive and most complicated gravitational experiment ever created, LIGO is susceptible to a great deal of instrumental and environmental sources of noise called *glitches*. These glitches are difficult to model using computers, can mimic true astrophysical signals, and generally make LIGO less sensitive to gravitational waves.
By selecting the right classification for a given glitch, you are helping computers learn to do this classification themselves on much larger datasets, which helps scientists determine and eliminate the sources of noise. Humans still are far better than computers at recognizing subtle differences across images and when an image simply does not fit within a known category. Please help us identify all of the glitch morphologies and open up an even bigger window into the gravitational wave universe!
Gravity Spy 