San Francisco (AFP) June 4, 2023
Ever since the poem churning ChatGPT burst on the scene six months ago, expert Gary Marcus has voiced caution against artificial intelligence's ultra-fast development and adoption. But against AI's apocalyptic doomsayers, the New York University emeritus professor told AFP in a recent interview that the technology's existential threats may currently be "overblown." "I'm not personally th

Seoul (AFP) June 4, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister Kim Yo Jong slammed the UN Security Council for holding a "most unfair" meeting over Pyongyang's recent spy satellite launch, state media reported on Sunday. North Korea's new Chollima-1 rocket lost thrust and crashed into the sea with its satellite payload on Wednesday, Pyongyang said in a rare same-day announcement, adding that another test

Beijing (XNA) Jun 02, 2023
Completing a six-month mission that included the successful completion of the Tiangong space station, the Shenzhou XV mission crew returned to Earth early Sunday morning. The crew's reentry capsule, carrying Major General Fei Junlong, the mission's commander, and Senior Colonels Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, descended at the Dongfeng Landing Site, situated in northwestern China's Gobi Desert

Paris (ESA) Jun 02, 2023
In an unprecedented move, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that it will be hiring over 200 new colleagues to join its teams in 2023. This large-scale recruitment drive aims to support ESA's ongoing mission of promoting the peaceful exploration and use of space for the benefit of everyone. ESA recently published over 30 job vacancies and hinted at more to come. This opens a mul

Lausanne, Switzerland (SPX) Jun 02, 2023
A team of researchers from EPFL have found a way to use the phenomenon of strong gravitational lensing to determine with precision - about 3 times more precise than any other technique - the mass of a galaxy containing a quasar, as well as their evolution in cosmic time. Knowing the mass of quasar host galaxies provides insight into the evolution of galaxies in the early universe, for building s

Evanston IL (SPX) Jun 02, 2023
An international team of astrophysicists has discovered something wholly new, hidden in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. In the early 1980s, Northwestern University's Farhad Yusef-Zadeh discovered gigantic, one-dimensional filaments dangling vertically near Sagittarius A*, our galaxy's central supermassive black hole. Now, Yusef-Zadeh and his collaborators have discovered a new populati

Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jun 02, 2023
As VIPER, NASA's next Moon rover, wheels about atop Mons Mouton - a large flat-topped mountain on the Moon's South Pole - one small but mighty piece of hardware will be critical for the team of rover drivers and scientists to send it commands, know where it is going, and receive valuable science data: a gimbal-pointed high-gain antenna. VIPER has both a low-gain and high-gain antenna to tr

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jun 02, 2023

Exactly 20 years ago, on 2 June 2003, the Mars Express spacecraft, the first European mission to explore another planet in the Solar System, launched on a Soyuz launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. A Fregat upper stage delivered the mission on a transfer orbit to Mars, which the spacecraft reached on 25 December of the same year. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC),

Paris (ESA) Jun 02, 2023
Exactly two decades ago, on 2 June 2003, ESA's Mars Express orbiter launched and began its journey to the Red Planet - Europe's first ever mission to Mars. The spacecraft aimed to enter orbit around Mars (something it did in December of that year) and use its vantage point to study the martian atmosphere and climate, unravel the planet's structure, mineralogy and geology, and search for traces o

Beijing, China (SPX) Jun 02, 2023
In a significant milestone for Asian space exploration, the Tongchuan Test Center at the 165th Institute of the Sixth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has successfully executed a run on its No. 2 test bench on May 30. This accomplishment comes on the heels of a successful test run of the No. 1 station test bench on April 24. Together, these developments confirm that