A Dutch volunteer in the Galaxy Zoo project, Hanny van Arkel, discovered a mysterious and unique celestial object now being dubbed the “Cosmic Ghost”. The Galaxy Zoo project (http://www.galaxyzoo.org) allows members of the public to take part in astronomy research online by allowing them to scan archived images. van Arkel came across the image of a strange, gaseous object with a hole in the center while using the website to classify images of galaxies. "The strange 'Hanny's Voorwerp' (as it is also known) looks like it could be the nearest example of a luminous quasar," said C. Megan Urry, Israel Munson Professor of Physics & Astronomy. Talk about Armchair astronomy.
More at ScienceDaily
