Finally! Today Galaxy Zoo 2 launched (after a startled Twitter countdown) and you will hopefully hear more about it either online or in the media during the coming week. The web address is the same, and so are many of the users, but this time everyone can say more than just whether a galaxy is spiral or not. Now users are being asked to define the galaxies more specifically and to alert the team to anything strange they might see (a voorwerp, anyone?).
The new initiative is a follow-up to the highly successful Galaxy Zoo project that enabled members of the public to take part in astronomy research online. But whereas the original site only asked members of the public to say whether a galaxy was spiral or elliptical, and which way it was rotating, Galaxy Zoo 2 asks them to delve deeper into 250,000 of the brightest and best galaxies to search for the strange and unusual.
The best way to learn about Galaxy Zoo is to go and have a go! You can also follow them on Twitter – where you might even catch the news in advance of the general public.
Orbiting Frog 
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