If you find yourself with too much free time on your hands, instead of spending it with your imaginary Facebook friends why don’t you head over to Galaxy Zoo and participate in some actual scientific research?

The idea behind Galaxy Zoo is simple: Galaxies come in different shapes (and sizes), and for scientists to be able to understand how they formed and evolved, they need to know about their shapes. With data now being collected by robotic telescopes the number of unclassified galaxies is huge, and since having a computer classify them is still way too complicated, over at Galaxy Zoo you can get an account and then classify them - as one out of many thousands of volunteers.

Apart from doing some actual scientific research (without a degree - hey, this almost sounds like spam!), you get to see what galaxies really look like - of course, those NASA propaganda images are always pretty and all, but the reason why they’re pretty is because if NASA showed you what most galaxies (or the images of galaxies) looked like you’d want your money back.

Oh, and there is a very realistic chance that you might even find something cool, such as galaxies colliding etc. As an added bonus you even learn how painfully boring scientific research can really be.