Einstein@Home - SciStarter

Einstein@Home uses your computer's idle time to search for weak astrophysical signals from spinning neutron stars (often called pulsars) using data from the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors, the MeerKAT radio telescope, the Fermi gamma-ray satellite, as well as archival data from the Arecibo radio telescope. Einstein@Home is a World Year of Physics 2005 and an International Year of Astronomy 2009 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS) and by a number of international organizations. Einstein@Home volunteers have already discovered more than 90 new neutron stars, and we hope to find many more in the future. Our long-term goal is to make the first direct detection of gravitational-wave emission from spinning neutron stars. Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, which have been directly detected in September 2015. This observations opened up a new window on the universe, and ushered in a new era in astronomy. As seen in Chapter 5 of Citizen Science by Caren Cooper.