Help Refine Data from Space Telescopes with Artifact InSPECtor

NASA has launched a new citizen science project called Artifact InSPECtor to help refine data gathered by space telescopes. By participating, people of all ages can contribute to scientific discoveries about our universe.

The Euclid space telescope and NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will create images of millions of distant galaxies. Spectrographs onboard these telescopes split the light into rainbow patterns called spectra, which scientists use to determine the distance, composition, and other properties of the galaxies.

However, telescope data often contains "artifacts" – signals that do not originate from real astronomical objects. These artifacts can be caused by light reflecting off the telescope housing, cosmic rays, or other factors. To remove these artifacts and improve the data, astronomers have developed artificial intelligence (AI) tools. But these tools need help to accurately identify and remove the artifacts.

As part of Artifact InSPECtor, volunteers will examine real space telescope data from Euclid and, starting in early 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The project will teach participants how to recognize and verify the validity of the artifacts. By combining their efforts with those of the AI, scientists, and the space telescopes, researchers hope to gain new insights into the workings of our universe and the mysterious dark energy causing its expansion.