You Too Can Explore Space

Just when you thought there was an automated process for everything, one of the most forward-thinking areas of science decided to ditch computers for some good old-fashioned human problem-solving.

Moon Zoo, a project based at England's Oxford University, relies on volunteers to cull through images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and make observations about the moon's surface. No computers, just the naked eye.

"It takes advantage of a very human ability, which is the ability to recognize patterns," said Oxford astrophysicist and project founder Chris Lintott in an interview with National Public Radio. "That kind of pattern recognition task is really tricky for computers to do."

Volunteers register on the project's website, watch a short training video and then are asked to count craters in images pulled from the LRO. According to Lintott, those observations give insight into the history and age of the moon's surface.

Lintott said there are enough scientists to review less than one percent of the LRO's images, and computers often will miss important details people can pick up.

"Computers don't make discoveries," he said. "They don't point at the thing in the corner and ask the question, 'What's that?' "