Well, recently we already had gamers cracking the puzzle of the AIDS enzymes that had been boggling scientists for a while, but yesterday, gamers also managed to assist space boffins to discover some new planets. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113377-Gamers-Help-Scientists-Discover-New-Planets I came across this article in Dutch yesterday, and when I looked for it this morning I did find yet another article about Kepler. Apparently the program is suffering cutbacks. Being someone who thinks all this space stuff is mighty exciting, I'm adding a link to that article as well as a request that if you do care about stuff like this, and you are in the US, you appeal to your politicians to not scrap this amazing piece of kit. Full article: http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...ey-to-keep-searching-for-earths-twins/245712/
There's also another project getting under way that involves some home based participation with the goal of locating the ascent stage of Snoopy, Apollo 10's lunar module. Apollo 10 was the "dress rehersal" for the first manned lunar landing. After a powered approach to under 50k feet of the surface, the descent stage was jettisoned and the ascent module returned to a higher orbit and docked with the command module. The 2 astronauts aboard Snoopy transferred back to the Command Module (appropriately named Charlie Brown), and then the ascent module was cast off into the viod. Unlike all the other Apollo missions that landed on the moon, Snoopy's ascent stage didn't impact on the lunar surface. Instead, it went into a solar orbit. A group of amatuer astronomers are taking up the hunt for the last flying Apollo spacecraft. http://news.discovery.com/space/apollo-10-search-snoopy-astronomy-110919.html
