Space is a strange, magical place! From NPR.org:

Hubble Telescope Sheds Light On Mysterious, Green Space Blob

Back in 2007, as part of a crowd-sourced study program called Galaxy Zoo, a Dutch school teacher discovered a very odd celestial object: It looked like a great, green blob floating in space and at the time it was inexplicable.

Today, thanks to the Hubble telescope, we have an unbelievable picture of Hanny’s Voorwerp, or Hanny’s Object, as it is now known. And we also have a better idea of what it is: Researchers said the blob is not a galaxy but a “twisting rope of gas, or tidal tail, about 300,000 light-years long that wraps around the galaxy [IC 2497].”…

First, that very young stars are forming inside the tidal tail. “The region may have been churning out stars for several million years,” said Keel. “They are so dim that they have previously been lost in the brilliant light of the surrounding gas.”

Keel told us that this is remarkable because this is not the kind of environment in which you would usually find star formation.[source article]

Two things cool about this: crowd-sourcing being used for more than marketing or spamming/winning elections AND strange green space blobs.

Please check out Galaxy Zoo. It’s zany galaxy-classifying fun. And, there’s apparently an iPhone app so you can help chart space on the bus or during meetings or wherever. Hopefully, an android app is not far behind!