NASA Creates Video Game So You Can Help It Find World’s Coral Reefs
Image via NASA/Ames Research Center/Ved Chirayath
If you are trying to use up the spare time you currently have on your hands, why not help out NASA’s scientists to locate coral reefs in the ocean by playing a video game?
NASA has developed a new video game, adorably called NeMO-Net, that invites players to virtually plunge into the ocean and classify corals in 3D images via satellites, ultimately training the space agency’s supercomputer.
Ved Chirayath, an astrophysicist and principal investigator for the project at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, likens NeMO-Net to a “relaxing coloring game” with “nice ocean music” for adults, according to a report by Fast Company. It even has an augmented-reality feature to bring the corals into your own living space digitally.
In the video game, you can identify corals, mark them with a brush, and relay information to the NASA’s servers. Then, NASA’s supercomputer will map the information with its low-resolution satellite data and learn to identify the coral by itself.
As of 2020, only six percent of the ocean has been explored, and it is especially tough to seek corals via satellite as there are optical distortions formed by water. Therefore, Chirayath formed the new technology to look into corals and other life on the seafloor in detail.
Coral reefs are fundamental to the eco-system, from providing food to people to protecting coasts from hurricanes. Now, you can do your part to go on a virtual expedition to seek the world’s coral reefs from the comfort of your home via NeMO-Net.
Want to help save Earth’s coral reefs? Here’s your chance!
— NASA Ames (@NASAAmes) April 9, 2020
NeMO-Net is a new #CitizenScience project that lets you identify & classify images of corals. Each action you make is a step toward saving these amazing underwater worlds. Download the app now: https://t.co/JWdqYIjFf1 pic.twitter.com/7xPWuBQNtC
[via Fast Company, cover image via NASA/Ames Research Center/Ved Chirayath]
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