Massive stars explode when they get old, following which the remaining material gets condensed into a small area which is called a black hole. They have a very strong gravitational field that distorts space-time. This bends light coming from stars behind them, making that light brighter for a short time.
The project referred as to Black Hole Hunters look for clues to the location of black holes left behind by their enormous gravity. And, now they have invited citizen scientists to look for these peaks of brightness from stars in graph data.
On their website, Black Hole Hunters also put up a tutorial explaining that you will have to find any stars that have been magnified by black holes. It is to be noted here that there are a lot of stars to look at, and this isn’t a job that computers can do. The data is gathered from 10 years of measurements from the SuperWASP survey.
The team hope to detect changes in starlight that may provide evidence for the existence of these black holes by examining data from the SuperWASP survey.
The project could help astronomers identify important black holes for future study, according to Adam McMaster, one of the co-leads: “I can’t wait to see what we find with the Black Hole Hunters project. The black holes we’re looking for should definitely exist, but none have been found yet. Our search should give us the first hints about how many black holes are quietly orbiting stars, eventually helping us to understand the way such systems form," he said in a statement.
“Finding them is a huge task and it’s not something we could do alone, so it’s great that anyone with access to the Internet will be able to get involved no matter how much they know about astronomy."
You can join the search by visiting the Black Hole Hunters project site.
