Artifact InSPECtor

Telescope images often contain false features called “artifacts” that can mimic real astronomical objects. Today’s space telescopes like Euclid and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope are poised to answer fundamental questions: How quickly is the Universe expanding? What is dark energy, the strange force causing the expansion of the Universe? But artifacts in the data from cosmic rays and other sources slow them down by confusing astronomers and their computers.

When you join the Artifact InSPECtor project, you’ll help scientists manage these artifacts, so these new space telescopes reach their full potential. You’ll examine data on distant galaxies from the Euclid telescope. The telescope has spread the light from the galaxies into rainbows of colors, called spectra. Computer algorithms have tried to separate these useful spectra from pesky artifacts, but they have made mistakes. By correcting these mistakes, you’ll help teach the next generation of computer models to do a better job–and help teach humankind about the Universe we live in.