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Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 451

Dec 19, 2020

Fireball ‘as bright as full moon’ spotted in night sky over Japan

Posted by in category: space

Social media was abuzz Sunday after reports that an object emitting an intense light had been spotted falling from the skies above Japan in the early hours of the morning.

Supplied photo taken from video footage of a fireball seen in Gifu Prefecture, central Japan. (Kyodo)

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Dec 19, 2020

Using artificial intelligence to help drones find people lost in the woods

Posted by in categories: drones, robotics/AI, space

A trio of researchers at Johannes Kepler University has used artificial intelligence to improve thermal imaging camera searches of people lost in the woods. In their paper published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, David Schedl, Indrajit Kurmi and Oliver Bimber, describe how they applied a deep learning network to the problem of people lost in the woods and how well it worked.

When people become lost in forests, search and rescue experts use helicopters to fly over the area where they are most likely to be found. In addition to simply scanning the ground below, the researchers use binoculars and . It is hoped that such cameras will highlight differences in body temperature of people on the ground versus their surroundings making them easier to spot. Unfortunately, in some instances does not work as intended because of vegetation covering subsoil or the sun heating the trees to a temperature that is similar to the body temperature of the person that is lost. In this new effort, the researchers sought to overcome these problems by using a deep learning application to improve the images that are made.

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Dec 19, 2020

‘Guardians’ of the Galaxy: Space Force Members Get New Name

Posted by in categories: military, space

Space Force members will be known as “Guardians” from now on, Vice President Michael R. Pence announced Dec. 18.

“Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Guardians will be defending our nation for generations to come,” he said at a Dec. 18 White House ceremony celebrating the Space Force’s upcoming birthday.

As the Space Force turns 1 year old on Dec. 20, abandoning the moniker of “Airman” is one of the most prominent moves made so far to distinguish space personnel from the Air Force they came from. An effort to crowdsource options brought in more than 500 responses earlier this year, including “sentinel” and “vanguard.”

Dec 19, 2020

Left of Launch: Artificial Intelligence at the Nuclear Nexus

Posted by in categories: information science, military, policy, robotics/AI, space, surveillance

Popular media and policy-oriented discussions on the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear weapons systems frequently focus on matters of launch authority—that is, whether AI, especially machine learning (ML) capabilities, should be incorporated into the decision to use nuclear weapons and thereby reduce the role of human control in the decisionmaking process. This is a future we should avoid. Yet while the extreme case of automating nuclear weapons use is high stakes, and thus existential to get right, there are many other areas of potential AI adoption into the nuclear enterprise that require assessment. Moreover, as the conventional military moves rapidly to adopt AI tools in a host of mission areas, the overlapping consequences for the nuclear mission space, including in nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), may be underappreciated.

AI may be used in ways that do not directly involve or are not immediately recognizable to senior decisionmakers. These areas of AI application are far left of an operational decision or decision to launch and include four priority sectors: security and defense; intelligence activities and indications and warning; modeling and simulation, optimization, and data analytics; and logistics and maintenance. Given the rapid pace of development, even if algorithms are not used to launch nuclear weapons, ML could shape the design of the next-generation ballistic missile or be embedded in the underlying logistics infrastructure. ML vision models may undergird the intelligence process that detects the movement of adversary mobile missile launchers and optimize the tipping and queuing of overhead surveillance assets, even as a human decisionmaker remains firmly in the loop in any ultimate decisions about nuclear use. Understanding and navigating these developments in the context of nuclear deterrence and the understanding of escalation risks will require the analytical attention of the nuclear community and likely the adoption of risk management approaches, especially where the exclusion of AI is not reasonable or feasible.

Dec 18, 2020

How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?

Posted by in category: space

Space Mysteries: If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, how can a star be more than 14 billion years old?

Dec 18, 2020

China Used Exoskeletons to Recover Moon Samples

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, space

The team in charge of recovering China’s successfully returned lunar samples in Inner Mongolia wasn’t just futuristic because it was picking up Moon rocks — its members also wore passive exoskeletons to help trudge through the snow, the South China Morning Post reports.

“I would have been exhausted after walking 20 or 30 meters, but with the help of the exoskeleton, 100 meters or more was not a problem,” one of the team members told SCMP. He was tasked with carrying 110 pounds of gear through the deep snow with temperatures well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dec 18, 2020

NASA says Boeing’s next Starliner test flight won’t launch until 2021

Posted by in category: space

Boeing’s next Starliner test flight for NASA won’t launch until early 2021 due to software checks, a NASA official said Tuesday (Nov. 10).

Dec 18, 2020

C1-23152: An ancient galaxy that built itself

Posted by in category: space

A popular theory of galaxy formation suggests that small galaxies merged to form larger ones. But galaxy C1-23152 — 12 billion light-years from Earth — apparently formed itself from gas in the early universe, via exceedingly rapid star formation.

Dec 18, 2020

China is opening the world’s largest radio telescope up to international scientists

Posted by in category: space

Following the collapse of the historic Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, China has opened the biggest radio telescope in the world up to international scientists. In Pingtang, Guizhou province stands the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the largest radio telescope in the world, surpassing the Arecibo Observatory, which stood as the largest in the world for 53 years before the construction of FAST was completed in 2016. Following two cable failures earlier this year, Arecibo’s radio telescope collapsed in November, shutting down the observatory for good. Now, FAST is opening its doors to astronomers from around the world.

Dec 18, 2020

China Moon Samples: Headed for the Lab (Updated)

Posted by in category: space

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The Chang’e-5 returner capsule carrying lunar samples is headed for a Beijing laboratory for opening, with an eagerly awaiting research team set to study the fresh Moon specimens.

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