RGZ has published five scientific studies (May 2018). i)
Radio Galaxy Zoo: host galaxies and radio morphologies derived from visual inspection. (November 2015) The abstract begins: "We present results from the first twelve months of operation of Radio Galaxy Zoo, which upon completion will enable visual inspection of over 170,000 radio sources to determine the host galaxy of the radio emission and the radio morphology." The research team tested trained citizen scientists and ten professional astronomers using a hundred images to help quantify the quality of the data gathered. As the initial results were published, facts and figures from RGZ became available. More than 1.2 million radio images have been looked at, which enabled 60,000 radio sources to be matched to their host galaxies: "A feat that would have taken a single astronomer working 40 hours a week roughly 50 years to complete." The abstract begins: "We have discovered a previously unreported
poor cluster of galaxies (RGZ-CL J0823.2+0333) through an unusual giant wide-angle tail radio galaxy found in the Radio Galaxy Zoo project." It continues to explain that the analysis of 2MASX J08231289+0333016's surrounding environment indicates that it is within a poor cluster. Radio morphology suggests that, firstly, "the host galaxy is moving at a significant velocity with respect to an ambient medium like that of at least a poor cluster" and secondly that "the source may have had two ignition events of the
active galactic nucleus with 10^7yrs in between." He explains that two Russian citizen scientists (CSs), Ivan Terentev and Tim Matorny, were participating in RGZ when they noticed something odd with one of the radio sources. It became clear that the radio source the two CSs had found "was just one of a line of radio blobs that delineate a C-shaped “wide angle tail galaxy” (WATG)." Lead scientist Julie Banfield explained that this was "something that none of us had even thought would be possible." Terentev added, “I got a chance to see the whole process of science … and I have been a part of it!” The abstract begins: "Hybrid morphology radio sources are a rare type of radio galaxy that display different Fanaroff-Riley classes on opposite sides of their nuclei." The authors explain that RGZ has enabled them to discover 25 new candidate hybrid morphology radio galaxies (HyMoRS). These HyMoRS are at distances between redshifts z=0.14 and 1.0. Nine of the host galaxies have previous
spectra and include
quasars and a rare
Green bean galaxy. It states: "Although the origin of the hybrid morphology radio galaxies is still unclear, this type of radio source starts depicting itself as a rather diverse class." The lead scientist is Anna Kapinska with CS Ivan Terentev named second. Kapinska's team have been looking for rare types of galaxies named Hybrid Morphology Radio Galaxies (HyMoRS). These show galaxy characteristics that are combined, rather than distinct. The article states: "Finding more HyMoRS helps us understand what kind of galaxy can turn out this way, and what gives them their unusual properties. Knowing that, in turn, helps us better understand how all galaxies evolve." In November 2017, a team led by Omar Contigiani published a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society studying the mutual alignment of radio sources. In May 2018, Lukic and team published a study in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society concerning machine learning techniques. The abstract begins: "Machine learning techniques have been increasingly useful in astronomical applications over the last few years, for example in the morphological classification of galaxies." == Gems of the Galaxy Zoos (ZooGems) ==