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##The Milky Way Project: New Galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance

###About

This repository is an open science paper created as part of the Zooniverse citizen science site: The Milky Way Project. Email Robert Simpson with any queries or comments, or create a GitHub pull request :)

###File Structure

/data is the location of all raw data, be it external (e.g. In the case of 2MRS survey data) or internal (e.g. the list of galaxy parameters derived in this study)

/figures is the location of all figures, plots, etc found in the paper. Subdirectories for common groupings or large collections of subfigures.

/scripts is the location of scripts for the creation of tables, figures, etc in the paper. These should be created using data files stores in /data and result in new files stored either in /data or /figures.

The main tex file is MWPGalaxies.tex and the main reference library is mwpref.bib. The other files are common LaTeX entities, and are only included for completeness.

###Paper Abstract

We report the discovery of 33 previously unknown galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance. We also present a method for identifying galaxies through data gathered from the citizen science website The Milky Way Project. 43 candidate galaxies are identified through correlation of markings from volunteers, inspecting Spitzer GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL survey data on `The Milky Way Project' website.

The characteristics of these candidate, such as their locations, spectral energy distributions and redshift velocities are used to confirm whether they are galaxies. The magnitudes and integrated flux of the candidates are calculated in GLIMPSE bands 3.6μm, 4.5μm, 5.8μm and 8.0μm, and MIPSGAL band 24μm. The velocities of these 33 newly uncovered galaxies appear to correlate with the velocities of over-densities in the large-scale structure, at very low Galactic latitudes either side of the Zone of Avoidance.

Our findings therefore suggest that the large-scale structure continues throughout the Zone of Avoidance, and highlight the potential for many more galaxies to be found in far-infrared survey data.