What Galaxy Zoo does

Galaxy Zoo is a citizen science research project operating within the Zooniverse platform, an open infrastructure for people-powered research hosted by the Adler Planetarium, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Oxford. The product invites members of the general public to classify telescope images of distant galaxies according to their shapes, with each image typically reviewed by multiple volunteers and the results aggregated to ensure reliability. The platform runs on the Zooniverse Panoptes software stack and integrates imagery from multiple observatories — historically the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and, currently, the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time, alongside data from NASA and ESA telescopes.

Functionally, the platform addresses a scale bottleneck in extragalactic astronomy: the volume of galaxy imagery now exceeds the classification capacity of professional researchers, and volunteer labor converts raw telescope data into structured morphological catalogs that feed published research. Galaxy Zoo is supported by a parallel community discussion environment (Zooniverse Talk), a blog, and social channels on Facebook and BlueSky that double as volunteer recruitment and engagement mechanisms. Chris Lintott, an astronomer, is identified as the founder.

From a business model standpoint, Galaxy Zoo does not generate commercial revenue. The volunteer-facing product is free and open globally. Project funding flows to Zooniverse and partner institutions through research grants, with disclosed support from the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (via LSST:UK). The entity has 1-10 employees per firmographic data, operates as a private non-commercial research project, and has no pricing model, paying customers, or disclosed funding rounds.

Name

Galaxy Zoo

Website

https://galaxyzoo.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Galaxy Zoo is a free citizen science project that lets members of the public classify telescope images of galaxies by shape, supporting astronomical research through the Zooniverse platform in collaboration with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, NASA, ESA, and university partners.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Citizen Science Research Platform

akta.pro primary industry

Science & Technology Museums (THAJADAD)

Keywords

• Citizen science platform
• Galaxy classification
• Crowdsourced astronomy
• Volunteer research platform
• Telescope image analysis

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Grant Funding: Galaxy Zoo is a research project that appears to be funded through grants from institutions including the US National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Revenue is not generated from the volunteer platform itself.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Galaxy Zoo is a free citizen science platform that enables members of the public to classify telescope images of distant galaxies according to their shapes, contributing directly to astronomical research on galaxy formation and evolution. Classifications from multiple volunteers are aggregated to ensure accuracy, and the platform currently processes data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time alongside historical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, NASA, and ESA telescopes.

Product overview

Galaxy Zoo is a single citizen science product within the Zooniverse platform. It operates as a crowdsourced galaxy classification tool where volunteers analyze telescope images to categorize galaxies by shape. Classifications are aggregated across multiple volunteers for accuracy, and the platform has processed images from various telescopes including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Galaxy Zoo

Quantifiable outcome

• Classified galaxies observed by numerous telescopes including Sloan Digital Sky Survey, NASA, ESA, and other organizations over nearly two decades

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• Vera C. Rubin ObservatorycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Vera C. Rubin Observatory is the source of Galaxy Zoo's latest galaxy imagery. The observatory, funded by the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy, provides data from the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Galaxy Zoo serves as the primary crowdsourced classification platform for Rubin Observatory imagery.
• NASAcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNASA provides space-based telescope imagery for Galaxy Zoo classifications. The NASA Zooniverse Projects organization page is linked on Galaxy Zoo, indicating an ongoing collaboration for utilizing NASA telescope data in citizen science research.
• LSST:UK / Science and Technology Facilities CouncilmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerLSST:UK, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, provided development support for Galaxy Zoo's Rubin Observatory workflow. UK-based collaboration supporting the integration of Rubin data into the Galaxy Zoo platform.
• Sloan Digital Sky SurveymajorTechnology or IntegrationGalaxy Zoo was originally built using images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This foundational partnership enabled the first major phase of Galaxy Zoo's operations, with volunteers classifying galaxies observed by this ground-based telescope survey.
• European Space Agency (ESA)majorTechnology or IntegrationESA provides space-based telescope imagery that has been incorporated into Galaxy Zoo classifications, expanding the data sources beyond ground-based telescopes to include European space telescope observations.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Broad incumbents

• SciStarter: A platform aggregating hundreds of citizen science projects across disciplines. Comparable as a discovery and engagement layer for volunteer-sourced research, though broader in scope than Galaxy Zoo.

Direct peers

• Stardust@Home: NASA-funded volunteer project asking the public to identify interstellar dust particles. Closely comparable as a citizen-science astronomy research platform with NASA partnership.
• eBird: Cornell Lab of Ornithology's crowdsourced bird-observation platform. It is one of the largest and longest-running citizen science projects globally and operates on a similar model of volunteer-supplied data contributing to peer-reviewed research.
• Zooniverse: The parent citizen-science platform that hosts Galaxy Zoo. Zooniverse shares the same Panoptes infrastructure, volunteer community, and research-grade crowdsourcing model, making it the most directly comparable peer.
• iNaturalist: Joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic offering crowdsourced biodiversity observations. Comparable to Galaxy Zoo in scale of volunteer contributions, scientific output, and consensus-validation methodology.
• SETI@home: Volunteer-based distributed computing project analyzing radio telescope data for extraterrestrial signals. Closely aligned with Galaxy Zoo's mission of leveraging public participation for large-scale astronomical analysis.
• Foldit: University of Washington protein-folding citizen science game. Operates with the same volunteer-driven scientific discovery premise and demonstrates game-ification techniques that are conceptually adjacent to Galaxy Zoo.
• Snapshot Serengeti: Zooniverse-hosted wildlife camera-trap classification project. Similar model of volunteer consensus labeling applied to ecological image data on the same parent platform.
• Smithsonian Digital Volunteers: Smithsonian Institution's crowdsourced transcription platform for historical and scientific archives. Operates on similar volunteer-task and consensus-validation principles tied to a major cultural/scientific institution.
• CosmoQuest: Citizen science project focused on astronomy, including crater counting and surface feature mapping. Direct competitor in the niche of crowdsourced space-science classification.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/thegalaxyzoo

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Galaxy Zoo