Long, Long Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

For this project I wanted to see if I could discover a rare galaxy never seen before. My hypothesis was yes, I think it is possible to discover a rare galaxy using the COSMOS-Web survey taken with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) accessible through Galaxy Zoo. COSMOS-Web (The Cosmic Evolution Survey) is the largest of several deep galaxy imaging surveys using JWST. Astronomers have focussed on a particular patch of the sky (nicknamed the COSMOS field) about 16 times the size of the full moon (COSMOS, 2015). Galaxy Zoo is an online citizen science platform in which volunteer participants can help scientists to analyze and classify thousands of galaxy images.

A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, dark matter and millions to trillions of stars and their solar systems all bound together by gravity. The total number of galaxies in the visible universe is between 6 and 20 trillion. There are 4 main galaxy types: spiral, elliptical, lenticular and irregular. Through Galaxy Zoo, scientists study the shape of galaxies (galaxy morphology) to learn more about how they interact with their surroundings/other galaxies and how they evolve over time. This can help scientists to understand more about the past, present and future of the universe. Images from the JWST also let us look deeper into the cosmos and further back in cosmic time then ever in human history.

Method

The galaxy images were classified using Galaxy Zoo based on the decision tree method (fig. 1) to classify the data, meaning each new question is dependent on how the volunteer answers the first question (Pearson et. al, 2025).

First, I created an account on Zooniverse and then I did the tutorial for the Galaxy Zoo Citizen Science Project. After that I clicked get started to access the galaxy images from the James Web Space Telescope (JWST).

I answered a series of questions about the shape of the galaxy, to learn about the astrophysical processes in the galaxy’s evolution. I used the two main colour versions to help see different features in the galaxy; both colour images are built from four COSMOS-web filters (F115w, F150w, F277w, and F444w).

After classifying galaxy images, I posted any interesting data to the talk to get opinions from other researchers or participants.  I added any interesting data to my personal collection for future reference.

I used the additional information linked with NASA's Extragalactic Database (NED) to find information about the age at redshift for a nearby object. I then entered the redshift values into the NED Cosmology calculator to find the age at redshift and the light travel time for the two interesting galaxies.

AI training with Zoobot

Galaxy Zoo is currently training AI with Zoobot but for now humans are considered better at identifying and classifying galaxies. For example, machine learning often has trouble with rare and complex features such as gravitational lenses, irregular galaxies and mergers. To minimize human error, each galaxy image is classified by at least 40 volunteers (Pearson et al., 2025). Volunteers are considered very important for this AI training process and can do just as well as professional astronomers to complete this galaxy classification work.

In total I classified 189 galaxies, but I only analyzed 47 of the most interesting ones in further detail. The most common galaxy types that I found were spiral (11) and edge on (11) followed by irregular (10), elliptical (7), mergers (5), weird (2) and lenticular (1) (see fig. 2). For each of the different galaxy types I analyzed the features in more detail (see fig. 3 & 4).

Interesting and Weird Galaxies Discovered

Subject 108973087 is a weird galaxy (see fig. 5). This is because it has weird features such as a possible collisional ring or even a rare polar ring. This galaxy could also be an overlap or a disturbed red spiral. A polar ring is a rare galaxy with a ring of gas and stars orbiting at a right angle. This galaxy includes both red and blue colours indicating a combination of both old and young stars, a known feature of polar ring galaxies (Dobrycheva, D.V. et.al., 2025). A polar ring is also one of the rarest known galaxies which makes this a very exciting find! This galaxy may also be a collisional ring. Collisional rings form when a smaller galaxy passes through the centre of a larger disk galaxy.

Subject 108823670 is also a very interesting galaxy (see fig. 6). It has a lot of cool features and details such as a disturbed spiral, more than 4 arms, a moderate bulge and a bar. It is also very beautiful. I was also the first to view this galaxy and the talk discussion says that it deserves further study. Another Galaxy Zoo participant found three other close-up views of this galaxy which allows for more detailed study of the spiral arms (see fig. 7).

I used the NED Cosmology calculator, and the z values listed for nearby objects in NASA’s Extragalactic Database (NED) to find additional information about the galaxies. For Subject 108823670 (spiral with more than 4 arms) the age at redshift is 7.178 billion years and the light travel time was 6.543 billion years. The universe was about half its current age (6.543 billion years) when light left this galaxy. For Subject 108973087 (possible polar ring) the age at redshift was 11.270 billion years and the light travel time was 2.451 billion years. This means the universe was 11.270 billion years old when light left this galaxy.

The galaxies I analyzed have various features which can help scientists further classify and understand how galaxies evolve and change. My hypothesis was right because I found two interesting galaxies never seen before: Subject 108973087 (a possible polar ring) and Subject 108823670 (a disturbed spiral with more than 4 arms).

For Subject 108973087, the ring is not complete, and the full ring is not visible therefore further study is needed to confirm that this is a polar ring. There is also a strange, red lump at the bottom of the galaxy that requires further study.

For Subject 108823670, the blue colour of some stars located in the closeup views of the spiral arms indicate potential active star formation in these areas.

The discussion on the talk showed that these galaxies deserve further study since they are both rare galaxy types with very interesting features. By identifying weird and interesting galaxies, we can challenge the standard galaxy classification system and re-examine what we know about galaxy structure and evolution.

The additional information provided by the NASA Extragalactic Database and the NED Cosmology calculator provide information about the period in cosmological time when these galaxies' light was emitted.

This type of work is also extremely important for helping to train AI systems such as Zoobot to use these large-scale tools for data classification in the future.

I would like to analyze more data to try to find more interesting galaxies. I would especially like to focus on learning more about rare galaxies such as polar rings possibly by using model simulation and AI systems.

The discovery of two interesting galaxies may allow for further study about their distinct features and could lead to scientific publications based in part on this data. As there is still a lot of data available to analyze (currently only 6% complete) and data is continuously added, there are many opportunities for further galaxy classification work and analysis through Galaxy Zoo.

Thanks to Galaxy Zoo for making this data open to the public. A big thank you to my mentors Mathew Lundy, Postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University Astrophysics lab and Dr. Laurie Rousseau-Nepton, Assistant Professor, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto for reviewing my report and giving suggestions for improvement. Thanks also to my mentor Guillaume Chicoisne, scientific advisor, for reviewing my project board and giving suggestions for my presentation. Thank you to my mother for helping me proofread my report and assemble my digital board and poster. Thanks to my dad for his help with my video. Thank you to my science teacher Frederick Gilbert for his support and encouragement. Participation in the CWSF would not have been possible without the generous support of the Cree School Board and the Quebec Indigenous Science Fair. I am grateful for this opportunity to represent my community here at CWSF.

References

About | Zooniverse (n.d.). https://www.zooniverse.org/about

Cermak, A., & Team, N. H. M. (2025, March 20). Barred spiral galaxies are latecomers to the universe - NASA Science. NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/barred-spiral-galaxies-are-latecomers-to-the-universe/

Dobrycheva, D. V., Hetmantsev, O. O., Vavilova, I. B., Shportko, A., Gugnin, O., & Kompaniiets, O.V.(2025). Discovery of the polar ring galaxies with deep learning. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 702, A258. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555052

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Institute for Advanced Study (2023, October 24). Spirals in Galaxies - Karen Masters. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQyd0o6AjKw

‌Kaiser, C., & Kaiser, C. (2026, January 14). Galaxy Zoo - NASA Science. NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/galaxy-zoo/

Mathewson, S. (2025, May 11). Calling citizen scientists! Help NASA's Galaxy Zoo classify galaxies seen by James Webb Space Telescope. Space. https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/calling-citizen-scientists-help-nasas-galaxy-zoo-classify-galaxies-seen-by-james-webb-space-telescope

NASA Space News (2024, January 1). Spiral Galaxies in the Early Universe: How the JWST Images Overcame the Challenges and Limitations. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z43397H10To

NED Cosmology Calculator. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html

Pearson, J., Dickinson, H., Serjeant, S., Walmsley, M., Fortson, L., Kruk, S., Masters, K. L., Simmons, B. D., Smethurst, R. J., Lintott, C., Zalesky, L., McPartland, C., Weaver, J. R., Toft, S., Sanders, D., Nima Chartab, McCracken, H. J., Bahram Mobasher, Istvan Szapudi, & East, N. (2025). Galaxy Zoo: Cosmic Dawn–morphological classifications for over 41 000 galaxies in the Euclid Deep Field North from the Hawaii Two-0 Cosmic Dawn survey. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 546(3). https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf2250

Wikipedia Contributors (2026, February 17). Polar-ring galaxy. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation.