Using AI to count and map craters on the moon
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 15:01
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China, one from Italy and one from Iceland has used a machine-learning artificial intelligence application to count and note the location of over 100,000 craters on the moon. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes programming their system to recognize craters by training it with data collected by Chinese lunar orbiters.
Prior work identifying and mapping craters on the moon has tended to be a slow process—it has generally been done by hand, with researchers studying photographs and transferring those observations to maps or moon globes. In this new effort, the researchers have found a way to dramatically speed up the process by teaching a computer to identify craters and then to count them.
Teaching a computer to recognize craters on the moon has been a difficult process due to the many forms craters can take. Not all are round, and they are of different ages, which means defining characteristics have eroded over long periods of time.
On National Security | Space acquisition reform awaits Biden’s Pentagon team
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 15:00
The Pentagon’s overseers in Congress have been consistently critical of how the military acquires space hardware. Frustration with space procurements was in fact one of the catalysts for the creation of the U.S.
Year in images 2020
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 13:39
Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2020
Image: Space bauble produced by the Multiscale Boiling experiment
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 12:43
Deck the halls with space-based bubbles!
Here is a festive bauble you will not see on Earth: a bubble produced by the Multiscale Boiling experiment, known affectionately as Rubi.
In this image, electrostatic forces are pulling the bubble upwards and making it spherical, producing not only a cool image but also cool insights into the boiling process.
Understanding how boiling behaves in weightlessness is imperative because gravity plays an important role. Without gravity, boiling takes place in slow motion and produces larger bubbles. This has allowed scientists to observe and measure effects that are too fast and too small on Earth.
The experiment is also installed with an electrode to observe the effect of an electric field on the bubbles, enabling scientists to observe and quantify the effect of external forces.
"Boiling is an extremely efficient way of getting rid of excess heat. This research could therefore provide very valuable information for improving the thermal management systems in space as well as in terrestrial applications," says ESA project scientist Daniele Mangini.
With this insight and more accurate calculations of the boiling process, products such as laptops can be improved and made more compact.
ESA Clean Space tackles space junk one component at a time
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 11:00
VALETTA, Malta — Through a novel approach to testing, the European Space Agency’s Clean Space initiative is assisting in the development of satellite components that are designed for demise, an approach to satellite development that advocates for the safe disposal of spacecraft by destructive atmospheric reentry.
Season's greetings from the European Space Agency
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 10:27
Season's greetings from the European Space Agency
Europe's Spaceport prepares for Ariane 6
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 09:40
Europe' Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana is gearing up for the arrival of Ariane 6, Europe's new generation launch vehicle.
FAA Begins Scoping Period for Environmental Review at SpaceX Launch Site
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is holding a public scoping period for the draft Environmental Assessment (EA) related to plans by SpaceX to apply for licenses for suborbital and orbital launches of its Starship/Super Heavy project at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
The scoping period will help the FAA in determine the scope of issues for analysis in the draft EA. The FAA requ A Martian Roundtrip: NASA's Perseverance Rover Sample Tubes
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
Marvels of engineering, the rover's sample tubes must be tough enough to safely bring Red Planet samples on the long journey back to Earth in immaculate condition.
The tubes carried in the belly of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover are destined to carry the first samples in history from another planet back to Earth. Future scientists will use these carefully selected representatives of M EMXYS and Royal Observatory, Belgium to participate in planetary defence Hera space mission
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
EMXYS and the Royal Observatory of Belgium have been selected by the European Space Agency to provide a gravimeter for the Juventas spacecraft that will land on asteroid Dimorphos as part of the European Space Agency's planetary defence programme.
EMXYS and the Royal Observatory of Belgium will provide the GRASS instrument that will make measurements on the gravity field of the asteroid Di The world's oldest story? Astronomers say global myths about 'seven sisters' stars may reach back 100,000 years
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
In the northern sky in December is a beautiful cluster of stars known as the Pleiades, or the "seven sisters". Look carefully and you will probably count six stars. So why do we say there are seven of them?
Many cultures around the world refer to the Pleiades as "seven sisters", and also tell quite similar stories about them. After studying the motion of the stars very closely, we believe Developing smarter, faster machine intelligence with light
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
Researchers at the George Washington University, together with researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the deep-tech venture startup Optelligence LLC, have developed an optical convolutional neural network accelerator capable of processing large amounts of information, on the order of petabytes, per second.
This innovation, which harnesses the massive parallelism of l A new method for the functionalization of graphene
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
An international research team involving Professor Federico Rosei of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has demonstrated a novel process to modify the structure and properties of graphene, a one atom thick carbon.
This chemical reaction, known as photocycloaddition, modifies the bonds between atoms using ultraviolet (UV) light. The results of the study were recently US Space Force enters 'Year 2' with momentum and soaring expectations
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
From the publicly available view on the outside, the birth and creation of the nation's newest military service was going well; there was general agreement as to the need for the new service, its strategic importance and how it would fit in to the nation's existing and sprawling military enterprise.
Hidden, however, was a level of bureaucratic gamesmanship and "churn," worrisome enough tha Satellites can reveal risk of forced labor in the world's fishing fleet
Tuesday, 22 December 2020 05:46
Vessels known to have crew that are subject to forced labor behave in systematically different ways to the rest of the global fishing fleet, reveals a new paper published in the scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery was used to build a first-of-its-kind model to identify and predict vessels at high risk of engaging in these abuses.
The study fou