SCIENCE
Learn a little about space archaeology.
Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit.
Discussion Ideas
- GlobalXplorer° is a citizen science/space archaeology platform that uses the “power of the crowd to analyze the incredible wealth of satellite images currently available to archaeologists.” What is citizen science?
- What is “space archaeology”?
- “Space archaeologists don’t actually work in space. Instead, they use satellite imagery, taken by spacecraft whizzing 400 miles above Earth’s surface, to find things buried within the planet’s crust.”
- Satellite imagery allows viewers to assess the “subtle differences on Earth’s surface that indicate what’s underground … [Parcak] can zoom in on specific chunks of land, then process the images to examine portions of the electromagnetic spectrum the human eye can’t see. While humans process only visible light, much of Parcak’s work deals in the near infrared and short-wave infrared. Looking at this portion of the spectrum allows Parcak to tease out detail that would otherwise go unnoticed.”
- “Space archaeologists don’t actually work in space. Instead, they use satellite imagery, taken by spacecraft whizzing 400 miles above Earth’s surface, to find things buried within the planet’s crust.”
- How is GlobalXplorer° taking citizen scientists to Peru?
- Via satellite. GlobalXplorers will analyze photographic “tiles” taken from a DigitalGlobe satellite orbiting about 400 miles above the Land of the Incas. Each tile covers about 100×100 meters of land, and the entire project will analyze about 200,000 square kilometers.
- Armchair archaeologists sift through the tiles, looking for “hints of looting, construction, or other encroachment, as well as signs of ruins that modern archaeologists have yet to find.”
- Via satellite. GlobalXplorers will analyze photographic “tiles” taken from a DigitalGlobe satellite orbiting about 400 miles above the Land of the Incas. Each tile covers about 100×100 meters of land, and the entire project will analyze about 200,000 square kilometers.
- How are the citizen scientists of GlobalXplorer° helping professional archaeologists?
- GlobalXplorer°’s mission is to identify and quantify looting and encroachment to sites of archaeological and historical importance. (Identifying and preventing looting is actually the first “campaign” GlobalXplorers engage in.)
- More than discovery, however, the program will weed through sites with no tangible cultural heritage, leaving the archaeological fun stuff to the professionals. “All it leaves for us [the professionals] is the 1 to 5 percent of the landscape that might actually contain something interesting.’”
- GlobalXplorer°’s mission is to identify and quantify looting and encroachment to sites of archaeological and historical importance. (Identifying and preventing looting is actually the first “campaign” GlobalXplorers engage in.)
- Wait a minute. Won’t the mapping platform actually help looters identify sites?
- No! Only the GlobalXplorer° team will have access to the actual satellite maps. The tens of millions of tiles analyzed by participants have been scrubbed of all location and map data. You don’t know quite what you’re looking at, or where it is.
- The GlobalXplorer° team “will not be creating a map for all sites, because it could fuel looting and add to site destruction. If and when the governments and protection agencies involved feel it’s appropriate, they will release this data directly.”
Illustration by Thomas Blackshear, National Geographic
- What might you expect to see as a GlobalXplorer° in Peru? Machu Picchu? Nazca? Those creepy child mummies?
- Uh, no. You’re most likely to see:
- undeveloped land, such as forests, mountains, plains, deserts, or beaches
- agricultural land, such as cattle ranches or cultivated fields
- clouds (the satellite is above cloud cover)
- pits! These large, deep holes are often signs of looting and basically what you’re looking for in the first set of tiles.
- Uh, no. You’re most likely to see:
- Parcak says crowdsourcing the most basic data analysis will help professional archaeologists speed up the actual discovery process. Are other sciences using citizen science in the same way?
- Yes, of course. Many use satellite imagery:
- Nat Geo Explorer Albert Lin conducted a crowdsourced search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, using satellite imagery in a similar way to GlobalXplorer°.
- You can spot the crop—a platform which is actually a lot like GlobalXplorer°.
- You can count penguins from space.
- Citizen science platforms that don’t use satellite imagery include:
- The “citizen science platform EyeWire has enlisted more than 200,000 people to help map the 3-D structures of neurons, resulting in a peer reviewed paper in Nature. Another, called Galaxy Zoo, is using crowdsourcing to classify galaxies in order to better understand how they form, and yet anther, Foldit, focuses on identifying the folding patterns of proteins.”
- Yes, of course. Many use satellite imagery:
TEACHERS TOOLKIT
Nat Geo: Watch: How to Become a Space Archaeologist
Wired: Want to Become a Space Archaeologist? Here’s Your Chance
Nat Geo: Space Archaeology
Reblogged this on Brain Popcorn and commented:
This is the best thing I’ve read all day. Of course, my brain went first to Daniel Jackson of Stargate SG-1, but he’d be the first to say that this is a fantastic use of satellite technology.
Go forth and save our history, intrepid space archaeologists!