Quite a few of the children were interested taking part in this online black-hole project. Information and link below....
Hi there,
Black Hole Hunters is back, searching for the most elusive objects in the galaxy!
Our galaxy contains millions of missing black holes and the Black Hole Hunters project is trying to track them down. The Milky Way contains over 10 million stellar-mass black holes, formed in the supernova explosions of massive stars. Yet there are only about 70 candidates and only about 20 confirmed black holes known. That leaves a huge number of black holes hiding in plain sight. Some of the missing black holes should magnify the light from stars through gravitational lensing, and with your help we can detect this!
We're a team of astronomers from the University of Southampton and the Open University in the UK. We have previously searched the archives of the SuperWASP survey and found several interesting candidates that we're currently trying to confirm with follow-up observations. With this new version of Black Hole Hunters, with more precise data from the TESS satellite, we should find far more candidates and they should be easier to confirm. Confirming even a few candidates could be huge for our understanding of black holes.
To join the search, check out the project here: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/cobalt-lensing/black-hole-hunters
Thanks, and happy hunting!
Cliff and the Zooniverse Team