Armchair astronomers wanted by Southampton scientists to help find thousands of black holes
You just a phone, tablet or laptop - and a bit of curiosity
Volunteer cosmic detectives are being called on for an interstellar mission to hunt down thousands of invisible black holes lurking in our own back yard.
Space scientists from the University of Southampton need amateur astronomers to search for signs that might locate them in our Milky Way.
They know the location of about 70 black holes but think there could be thousands more hiding in our galaxy yet to be discovered.
Experts behind the project used an AI system to pre-screen millions of possible locations and pinpoint where they may be hidden.
The case is now being handed over to citizen scientists to finish the job.
Dr Adam McMaster from the University of Southampton said: “Black holes are famously elusive and trap light, which hide them from telescopes.
“But they often leave clues because of their strong gravity, which bends light as they orbit around stars creating an effect called gravitational self-lensing.
“Once we detect this, we’ll know an invisible black hole exists.”
The space data used in the Black Hole Hunters project is taken from NASA's planet-hunting telescope TESS.
It has already struck a chord with amateur astronomers.
Stargazer Grace Clarke, 20, studies physics with astronomy at the University of Southampton.
The undergrad said: “There's still so little we know about black holes so the idea of finding one in our backyard is very exciting.
“I can search for black holes on my laptop from my bedroom – and could make a real impact on real space science.
“The data’s easy to understand, it's just pattern recognition, and you don't need a degree in astronomy to read it.”
Southampton scientists filtered huge quantities of data from the NASA telescope and turned them into simple graphs and animations, ready to be searched through by volunteers.
Dr McMaster added: “We now need people to look at these graphs and flag anything that catches their eye.
"It’s a simple task with no expertise required, and we show volunteers examples of what to look for so all they have to do is recognise the right patterns.
“You’ll be narrowing down precisely where we need to point our telescopes next and you might be the one to discover a black hole.”