Originally Posted by ngc3314

In this case, the backstory really is that good - in fact, the HST proposal review committee remarked that the public-outreach opportunities shouldn't be overlooked, which I've never seen done before. It turns out that Hanny tried Galaxy Zoo because she's a Brian May fan and he mentioned the project in his blog. The public and distributed nature of GZ meant that much of the initial speculation and data assessment played out in the Galaxy Zoo forum and blog posts in full view of anyone interested, which I think provided a good view of how science works "in process".