Tasking Citizen Scientists from Galaxy Zoo to Model Galaxy Collisions: Preliminary Results, Interface, Analysis

In the last decade several automated or semi-automated systems have been developed for determining the best-fit orbital parameters for interacting galaxies. These systems make use of a fitness function or a pattern matching capability for rating how well simulation outputs match the observed galaxies. The fitness functions are then optimized to find the best-fit parameters, frequently with a genetic algorithm. However, the success of these systems often relies on extensive manual tuning of simulation parameters. Due to the need for tuning, the existing systems have only been applied to a limited number of interacting pairs. The galaxy collision project is a set of software tools used to simulate pairs of interacting disk galaxies online. In this system, public volunteers with the Galaxy Zoo project act as Citizen Scientists using the tools to perform a series of restricted three-body simulations and rate the output. We briefly present the preliminary results for several interacting pairs including an analysis of the uniqueness of the best-fit orbital parameters.