Image credit: © Solarseven

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Brian Wang at NextBigFuture. Check out this week’s sampling of space-related stories from our colleagues and friends!

Click here to read Carnival of Space #591.

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space, thanks to our friends at Universe Today.

After many years as a finalist, Astronomy Cast has finally won in the Fact Behind the Fiction category of the 2018 Parsec Awards, joining the ranks of other fantastic podcasts such as Talk Nerdy with Cara Santa Maria, HubbleCast, the Planetary Society’sPlanetary Radio, Monster Talk, 365 Days of Astronomy and Universe Today’s Guide to Space.

Huge congratulations to Pamela, Fraser, and editor Chad for all of their hard work and for this much deserved win. Astronomy Cast is 12 years old and still going strong!

Parsec Awards winner list:
http://www.parsecawards.com/2018-parsec-awards-2/2018-winners-finalists/

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Sanlyn Buxner will be presenting the poster ED51F-0708: CosmoQuest: Supporting Online Citizen Science Through Activities and Classroom Lessons

When: Friday, 14 December 2018 08:00 – 12:20
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description: CosmoQuest.org is a website for participants ages 13 and up that supports both doing science and learning science. To facilitate free-choice learning and learning in informal settings, we provide engagement activities and even museum kiosks. We support classroom engagement in our citizen science programs through inquiry-based lesson plans appropriate for grades 6-16. These lesson plans are based on the three-dimensional framework suggested by the Next Generation Science Standards. These materials are designed to provide learners with an introduction to the science behind the citizen science projects, and to allow students to take a deep dive into the concepts addressed by each project. All materials are tested to assure quality and ease of use. Informal education materials are tested in museum and public event settings. Lessons have been tested by master teachers and revised based on best practices and pedagogy, and submitted for peer-review through NASA Wavelength, and upon acceptance are included in this larger repository of curated lessons (NASAwavelength.org). All lessons and activities are available free-of-charge on CosmoQuest.org, and may be used by anyone within their own educational settings. In this presentation, we highlight activities related to astronaut photography of the Earth, cratering on terrestrial bodies, lunar science specifically, and citizen science in general.

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Maya Bakerman will be presenting the poster ED41E-1237: International Observe the Moon Night – Nine Years of Engaging Visitors in Lunar and Planetary Exploration

When: Thursday, 13 December 2018 08:00 – 12:20
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description: International Observe the Moon Night is an annual worldwide event, held in the fall, that celebrates lunar and planetary science and exploration. International Observe the Moon Night is sponsored by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in collaboration with NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), the NASA’s Space Science Education Consortium, CosmoQuest, Night Sky Network, and Science Festival Alliance. Other key partners include the NASA Museum Alliance and NASA Solar System Ambassadors.

In 2018, International Observe the Moon Night will bring together thousands of people across the globe to observe and learn about the Moon and its connection to planetary science. This year we will also engage in activities for the 50th anniversary of Apollo.

Over 4,505 International Observe the Moon Night events were registered between 2010 and 2017, at which over a million visitors attended worldwide. Over the years, 47% of International Observe the Moon Night events have been held in the United States, with strong support from one hundred different countries. Since 2010 International Observe the Moon Night events sizes have increased, as have the number of events–to over 600 a year. Evaluation results show that International Observe the Moon Night visitors and hosts are encouraged to observe, understand, and connect to planetary science and exploration. International Observe the Moon Night events attract a variety of hosts: scientists, educators, and citizen enthusiasts around the world leverage International Observe the Moon Night to bring communities together, get visitors excited, and help them learn about the Moon–and beyond, and to share resources that help extend engagement in lunar and planetary science and observation.

Through our event website (relocated, in summer 2018, to https://moon.nasa.gov/observe), we annually provide resources such as event-specific Moon maps, presentation slides, advertising materials, and certificates of participation. Additionally, International Observe the Moon Night highlights partner resources such as online interfaces including Moon Trek (https://moontrek.jpl.nasa.gov) and CosmoQuest (https://cosmoquest.org/x/) to provide further opportunities to engage with NASA science.

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Maya Bakerman will be presenting the poster ED51F-0707: Citizen Science Motivations

When: Friday, 14 December 2018 08:00 – 12:20
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description: The increase in access to online science data has resulted in the need to develop efficient analysis opportunities for non-subject matter experts to assist with data collecting and analysis. Citizen science has been deemed a captivating way to engage the public in science and promote further scientific research. During six months in 2014, 30 participants from the CosmoQuest citizen science project were interviewed to assess their motivations for being involved in the citizen science projects as well as their experiences with citizen science. Participants were selected using the CosmoQuest database based on each individual’s duration in a project as well as the number of projects in which they participated. We report on participants’ interview responses related to their motivations, length and frequency of engagement, and reasons for leaving online projects. In particular, we examined if and how motivations may have changed for those who had engaged in the projects in order to develop support for, and to help understand, participants of citizen science. This data was analyzed in 2017 using the framework of Crowston and Fagnot’s (2008) intrinsic-extrinsic motivational arc which looked at curiosity-driven, cost-benefit, and contribution level. A majority of the individuals interviewed mentioned the reason for their participating was related to interest in the topic, helping, learning, or teaching. Of those participants who no longer took part in citizen science projects, a few indicated their being frustrated with the site, receiving negative feedback, and feeling unsupported. Our work is helping us to understand participants who engage in online citizen science projects so that researchers can better design projects to meet their needs and develop support materials and incentives to encourage more participation.

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Stuart J Robbins of the Southwest Research Institute Boulder will be presenting the poster P23F-3505: Investigating Mercury’s Large Crater Stratigraphy and Kilometer-Scale Primary and Secondary Crater Populations

When: Tuesday, 11 December 2018 13:40 – 18:00
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description: We will present a report on a detailed investigation into Mercury’s large-crater stratigraphy and implications on the reliability of using smaller (~km-scale) impact craters for relative and absolute model age calculations. Our work has two primary components.
First, Mercury’s larger (>~50–100 km) impact craters can be put into a relative framework based on the stratigraphic relationships between the craters. These relationships are determined by which crater cavities themselves are superposed on other craters, crater ejecta, distinct secondary crater chains, and/or crater rays.

Second, the role of secondary impact craters in contaminating crater counts on Mercury is investigated. Since MESSENGER observations began, researchers have investigated this issue and identified secondary impacts can dominate crater populations as large as10 km, which would be larger than on any other observed solar system body. However, some research suggests that is not the case, and/or that secondary craters can be reasonably separated from primary craters. If so, ~km-scale impacts can still be useful for relative and absolute model ages. We are testing this idea by identifying superposed small craters on the larger craters used in our stratigraphic framework. The stratigraphy must be correct – e.g., a crater overprinted on another cannot be older than the crater it overprints. Therefore, the stratigraphic framework will provide a “ground truth” we can use against which to test the relative ages of the crater floors based on the superposed crater counts.

We will report on: Progress testing the superposed craters against the stratigraphy, whether the superposed craters support or are in conflict with the stratigraphy, and whether any conflicts can be mitigated by using traditional methods of removing secondary impact craters (e.g., craters in chains or tight clusters). Data for the superposed craters comes in part from the CosmoQuest citizen science portal, which allows volunteers from around the world to help scientists by identifying features on bodies across the solar system.

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Ben Azubuike will be presenting the poster IN23A-0765: Citizen Science – Unearthing Hidden Interests

When: Tuesday, 11 December 2018 13:40 – 18:00
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description: One of the most important factors in assessing human subject data is acknowledging that people underestimate, exaggerate or omit information in their answers, and sometimes they just outright lie. Human beings may not acknowledge interests that they find embarrassing, or behaviors for which they fear being judged. Biases are also introduced by survey respondents trying to provide the answer they believe the surveyor wants to receive, rather than a true answer. In creating public programs that speak to the needs and interests of an audience, this can make it challenging to know what the audience actually wants. What is needed is a way to measure participant interests based on publicly available behaviors rather than from submitted surveys. In this presentation, we discuss the possibility of mining an audience’s Twitter engagements in order to probe their interests. Specifically, we examine the most followed topics as well as the most followed individuals within those topics. In order to understand the audience of CosmoQuest.org within the context of professional and amateur astronomy, we compare its Twitter audience’s interests and characteristics with those of other popular astronomy personalities and programs. In addition to giving us insight into our audiences, this also provides a way to determine who the most popular Twitter users are within different contexts.

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Matthew Richardson will be presenting the poster IN23A-0764: Streaming Science

When: Tuesday, 11 December 2018 13:40 – 18:00
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description:
As an online-based research facility, CosmoQuest endeavors not only to engage our digital community in the research projects that we offer, but also to disseminate the knowledge and resources that we have at our disposal. Online streaming media platforms such as Twitch and YouTube allow us to have intriguing science conversations with the greater internet community, as we promote our projects while also developing personal relationships with the members of our online research community that support our science investigations. In this presentation, we discuss the methods we use to stream, and highlight the educational streaming activities that CosmoQuest offers.

CosmoQuest has a large presence at this year’s AGU in Washington, DC, from Dec 10-14, 2018. We have a number of posters and presentations by our team members. If you’re there, come by and check out what we’ve been doing!

Carina Bennett from University of Arizona will be presenting the poster P33C-3848: Hazard Identification Using CosmoQuest Citizen Science for the OSIRIS-REx Mission

When: Wednesday, 12 December 2018 13:40 – 18:00
Where: Walter E Washington Convention Center – Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Description: The OSIRIS-REx mission is planned to begin proximity operations at the asteroid (101955) Bennu in December 2018. To identify candidate sample sites and ensure spacecraft safety, the mission team must identify hazards, including craters and boulders >21cm, for 80% of the surface. To achieve this, the Image Processing Working Group is collaborating with the virtual research facility CosmoQuest to design a citizen science-based project that facilitates crowd-sourced hazard identification. Development of this project consisted of a Bennu Mappers webpage built on the CosmoQuest Citizen Science Builder Software. This included new hazard identification tools unique to the Bennu Mappers application, a tutorial, and updates to the clustering algorithm that aggregates multiple users’ counts into single feature identifications.
In preparation for active mission work we have tested the Bennu Mappers tool using image data from several small bodies, including a) (25143) Itokawa from JAXA’s Hayabusa mission; b) Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from ESA’s Rosetta mission; and c) simulated image mosaics of Bennu. We recently completed an end-to-end test of the application during the Workshop in Geology and Geophysics of the Solar System summer school in Petnica, Serbia.

We present an overview of the new Bennu Mappers tool as well as results from recently completed end-to-end tests.

Image credit: © Solarseven

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by me, Susie Murph, over at Universe Today. Check out this week’s sampling of space-related stories from our colleagues and friends!

Click here to read Carnival of Space #590.

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space, thanks to our friends at Universe Today.