The bright central spots near the center of Occator Crater are shown in enhanced color in this view from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. Such views can be used to highlight subtle color differences on Ceres’ surface. The view combines high-resolution images of Occator from February with lower-resolution color data from September. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI / LPI)
The scientists behind NASA’s Dawn mission today showed off their latest, greatest pictures of the dwarf planet Ceres, including close-up views of curious bright spots on the surface.
The car-sized Dawn spacecraft has been circling Ceres, the biggest mini-world in the solar system’s asteroid belt, for just more than a year. In Dawn’s distant views, the bright spots looked like alien headlights. The latest images, captured from a height of just 240 miles, reveal that the brightest spot is a fractured dome sticking up from 57-mile-wide Occator Crater.
Other bright areas appear to be highly reflective deposits, crisscrossed by linear features and fractures.
Dawn’s scientists discussed their latest data today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
Twitter, Facebook and other social media came to the rescue again after today’s terror bombings in Brussels – so much so that Belgian authorities urged citizens to use those channels rather than the overloaded cellphone network.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo sent out an urgent plea for users to avoid making phone calls and rely on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter instead. The plea was sent out via … Twitter:
IMPORTANT: Brussels mobile networks are getting saturated. Please contact through data messages: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter. Avoid calls
— Alexander De Croo 🇧🇪🇪🇺 (@alexanderdecroo) March 22, 2016
n a Facebook post, the Belgian federal government asked citizens to avoid trying to send out or consume streaming music or video, so as to keep the channels clear for communication.
A virtual 3-D reconstruction shows King Richard III’s grave. (Credit: University of Leicester)
One year after King Richard III’s remains were reburied, the much-maligned monarch’s skeleton has been exposed once again – this time, in virtual reality.
Internet users can zoom in on the 15th-century remains as they were found in 2012, lying beneath a parking lot in the English city of Leicester. You can change your virtual camera angle on the scene, and get a guided tour by clicking on numbered points of interest.
The virtual reconstruction takes advantage of a photogrammetry program called Agisoft Photoscan and a 3-D sharing platform called Sketchfab – but most of the credit goes to the University of Leicester researchers who snapped so many pictures of the site before the bones were removed.
Retired Intel executive and tech pioneer Andrew Grove has died at the age of 79. (Credit: Intel)
Andrew Grove – the Intel chairman and CEO who helped usher in the age of microprocessors, personal computers and the Internet – passed away today at the age of 79, the company said.
Intel said Grove played a critical role in the California-based company’s transition from memory chips to microprocessors like the 386 and the Pentium. Those chips greatly expanded the capability of personal computers, and contributed to Microsoft’s long-lasting primacy in the desktop market.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates paid tribute to Grove in a statement emailed to GeekWire.
This enhanced color image of Pluto highlights the many subtle color differences between Pluto’s distinct regions. The imagery was collected by the spacecraft’s Ralph/MVIC color camera on July 14, 2015, from a range of 22,000 miles. (Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI)
Rivers and lakes of liquid nitrogen may have splashed over Pluto’s surface hundreds of millions of years ago, and could do so again, due to shifts in the dwarf planet’s orbit and the tilt of its orbit.
That hypothesis is a good fit for the evidence collected last July when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past the dwarf planet and its moons, scientists said today.
Today’s revelations came during a review of New Horizons’ findings at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. Research teams shared their latest findings about the mission, including some that have yet to be published in journals such as Icarus.
Go champion Lee Sedol meets the press after winning Game 4 in a five-game showdown against the AlphaGo AI program. (Credit: Google DeepMind via @thegoblognet)
Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo AI program may have won the $1 million five-game Go match with three straight wins, but Go champion Lee Sedol struck back with a consolation win today.
“Because I lost three matches, and I was able to get one single win, I think this one win is so valuable I would not trade it for anything in the world,” Lee said during a post-game news conference that was webcast from Seoul, South Korea.
Lee said he was driven on by the “cheers and encouragement” of his fans.
South Korean champion Lee Sedol (upper right) contemplates a move during his game against Google DeepMind’st AlphaGo artificial intelligence program. (Credit: Google DeepMind via YouTube)
Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence program will take home the $1 million prize after winning the first three games in its Go showdown with South Korean champion Lee Sedol.
“Folks, you saw history made here today,” webcast host Chris Garlock said.
But today’s third win isn’t the end of the historic match in Seoul: The last two games will still be played, with Lee hoping to demonstrate that it’s possible for a human to beat the computer program.
“I think it’s going to be tough going,” match commentator Michael Redmond said during today’s webcast. Lee was never able to achieve an advantage in the third game, which lasted more than four hours. More than 65,000 viewers watched the YouTube webcast at its peak.
After today’s game, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis paid tribute to Lee, and particularly to the “really huge ko fight” that the champion executed during the endgame.
“To be honest, we are a bit stunned and speechless,” Hassabis told reporters. “Lee Sedol put up an incredible fight again.”
Lee apologized for his performance, and said he let the pressure get to him during the third game. “I should have shown a better outcome. … I kind of felt powerless,” he said.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly takes a selfie from the International Space Station during his year in orbit. (Credit: Scott Kelly / NASA)
Godspeed, Scott Kelly.
Ten days after finishing up nearly a year in space, the veteran of four spaceflights announced today that he would retire from NASA on April 1. But he also promised to stay involved in the space effort, even after adding 143.8 million miles to his orbital odometer.
“Our universe is a big place, and we have many millions of miles yet to explore,” he said in a Facebook posting. “My departure from NASA is my next step on that journey. I remain ever committed and dedicated to the service of human exploration and advancement whether in space or on Earth.”
With 540 days in space under his belt, Kelly is almost certain to have surpassed NASA’s lifetime limits for radiation exposure. Scientists acknowledged even before the 52-year-old’s return to Earth on March 1 that his chances of taking on another spaceflight for NASA were virtually nil. But Kelly hasn’t ruled out the idea of flying into space for a commercial venture like SpaceX or Boeing.
The clock at Seattle’s Pike Place Market will have to be set manually after Sunday’s switch to daylight saving time. (Credit: Erik Stuhaug / Seattle.gov Imagebank)
Spring = forward. It’s a simple algorithm, but this weekend’s switch to daylight saving time can get complicated. The bottom line is that timepieces have to be pushed forward an hour in most (but not all) of North America.
Traditionally, clocks skip ahead an hour, from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. local time Sunday. Smartphones, computers and other connected devices should pick up the beat automatically. Old-school analog devices as well as standalone electronics such as microwave ovens will have to be set by hand, typically at bedtime on Saturday night.
But maybe there should be another way to think about all this, particularly because of 21st-century social trends.
Scientists say spring’s switch to daylight saving time is more of a strain today than it was a century ago, when it was instituted as a wartime energy-saving measure. Today, many of us lean toward going to bed later, and getting up later, too.
That’s because we receive more exposure to artificial light during the evening from technologies that include television and smartphones, according to Daniel McNally, medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center at UConn Health.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shows President Barack Obama around the company’s Cape Canaveral rocket processing site in 2010. (Credit: Bill Ingalls / NASA)
SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, has had to bat down all sorts of reports about political associations over the past couple of weeks – and the strategy that seems to work the best is to get people talking about sending humans to Mars. Maybe including the politicians.
The political angle cropped up in February when the Center for Responsive Politics listed SpaceX as one of the donors to GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. It turned out that the listing was an error, later corrected, but Musk found himself having to deny the Trump contributions via Twitter.
