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    April 1st, 2009

    By Steven

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    This morning the latest paper from Galaxy Zoo appeared on astro-ph — “Galaxy Zoo: an unusual new class of galaxy cluster”. Authored by two of the Galaxy Zoo team’s newest recruits, Marven F. Pedbost and Trillean Pomalgu, this four-page paper presents a remarkable new discovery, which may require us to revise our fundamental ideas about either our place in the universe or the occurrence of unlikely events. The abstract gives a concise summary:

    We have identified a new class of galaxy cluster using data from the Galaxy Zoo project. These clusters are rare, and thus have apparently gone unnoticed before, despite their unusual properties. They appear especially anomalous when the morphological properties of their component galaxies are considered. Their identification therefore depends upon the visual inspection of large numbers of galaxies, a feat which has only recently been made possible by Galaxy Zoo, together with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We present the basic properties of our cluster sample, and discuss possible formation scenarios and implications for cosmology.

    To find out more, you can download a pdf file of the paper here.

    This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:29 am and is filed under Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • 30 Comments

    Take a look at some of the responses we have had to this article.

    1. Aaron
      Apr 1st

      Well done.

    2. zeus2007
      Apr 1st

      Thumbs-up.

    3. Pat
      Apr 1st

      Well done everyone!!!! :D ::)

    4. John
      Apr 1st

      The best paper I read in ages!

    5. fluffyporcupine
      Apr 1st

      excellent, think thats the best paper i’ve ever read :D

    6. Sylvia
      Apr 1st

      Well done! Very convincing and so much work! :-)

    7. gaia
      Apr 1st

      Truly amazing stuff!

    8. mzeewzkazi
      Apr 1st

      Congratulations, it is a momentous occasion in our astronomical history, a pat on the backs for you (GZ n SDSS) and the hard working volunteers, today as an amateur astronomer I’m proud to be part of history, thanks GZ n SDSS for giving me this opportunity, and many more to come, again bravo :-D

    9. Alice
      Apr 1st

      Yay :D :D :D

    10. Joseph K. H. Cheng
      Apr 1st

      Hurrah ! Another ground breaking discovery for the Zoo community. Thanks for propagating the great news, Steven.

      JKHC.

    11. Hanns
      Apr 1st

      nice, I studied the paper because of the interesting abstract, soon notizing that it is April, 1st,….

    12. Nils W
      Apr 1st

      This year’s best joke so far!

    13. Gerardo Blanco
      Apr 1st

      Ja! I “apologize for the inconvenience”. You have a great sense of humor!!!

    14. Carolyn
      Apr 1st

      Great April fool!

    15. veggy
      Apr 1st

      First class. But don’t you have to take it down now? April Fool only runs to lunchtime and its lunchtime on the Greenwich Meridian.

    16. Chris
      Apr 1st

      I thought we just had to admit it was a fool…

      Anyway, the paper is on arXiv along with other April Fools past for all time…

    17. Hanny
      Apr 1st

      Very creative and great work! :D

    18. Half65
      Apr 1st

      Great news

    19. jgrahamf
      Apr 1st

      This is great news and might help my own theory regarding the existence of the Christmas galaxy cluster comprising the ’sleigh galaxy’ and its 12 accompanying reindeer galaxies.
      They can be seen in the night sky in both hemispheres on the same night of the year.

    20. rehana
      Apr 1st

      Too much classifying for me–I didn’t even see the words in the figure until I read the paper. Well done.

    21. pjm
      Apr 1st

      Breathtaking stuff. I am looking into follow-up opportunities – I think the Templeton Foundation might be interested.

    22. Budgieye
      Apr 1st

      So well written, it sounds believable. Can we learn something from this?

    23. margo calisto
      Apr 1st

      Brilliant paper! I turned down a place to studt at Brentwood Uni in favour of…..?
      I’m kicking myself.

    24. Stephen Cann
      Apr 1st

      Hmmm…

      Marven and Trillian from Brentwood in a paper published on 1st April.

      Could this be an April Fool tribute to Douglas Adams?

      Looks like it fooled a few people, though!

    25. Adrianus V
      Apr 1st

      When will this be published in The Astrophysical Journal? :-) That’ll be the first time I buy that magazine.

    26. Adolph Finn
      Apr 1st

      So long, and thanks for all the fish!

    27. jules
      Apr 1st

      Hubble, Bouble, Toil and Trobble – such eminent references too!! Nicely done! :) :)

    28. Adrianus V
      Apr 2nd

      I wrote a blog about this ‘discovery’ on my Dutch blog. The interesting thing was that one of my readers gave a reaction in which he paid attention to the statistics of the chance that such a configuration of galaxies in shapes like above will occur in the universe. Amazing story (http://www.astroblogs.nl/2009/04/01/galaxy-zoo-ontdekt-nieuw-type-clusters-van-sterrenstelsels/comment-page-1/#comment-21192). OK, it’s in Dutch, so grab a dictionary. :-)

    29. Louise D.
      Apr 3rd

      Well Done I see I am not the only Fool this April!!!!!
      Well Done we have been!!!!!!!

    30. Rob Smethurst
      Apr 4th

      Worthy of a 42 gun salute.

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