The University of Colorado-Boulder took the lead on a recent study to determine Cosmoquest’s Moon Mappers’ viability as a scientific tool, and the results are in—Moon Mappers is not only a reliable, but an exceptional tool for lunar mapping.

From the press release:

In a statistical comparison between the results of eight professional crater counters, and MoonMapper’s cadre of amateur counters from around the world, it was shown that the combined results are consistent across both groups, even across varied types of craters. This study also showed that the variation in counts between different professionals could be as much as 35%, while there was a 1 to 1 relationship between the combined professional counts and the citizen scientist counts.

“The results from the study were very reassuring to us,” said Robbins, the study’s lead author. “Without this first step of verifying the accuracy of volunteer crater counters, there would be no point in continuing the project.  Our study results mean we can now use the power of crowd-sourcing to gather more data than we ever thought possible before.”

So what does this mean?

In short, these results tell us that all of the hard work put into Moon Mappers and other projects has paid off, and will continue to do so. From volunteer mappers, to programmers and professional scientists, this project’s worth and value has been proven without a doubt—in no small part thanks to your efforts.

We’ll keep you updated with more details in future posts.

You can read the full press releases here (and bask in the golden glow of your own glory.)

CosmoQuest’s “MoonMappers” Shows Everyday People Can Map the Moon

CU-Boulder-led study on lunar crater counting shows crowdsourcing effective, accurate tool

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