13 Dec If The Universe Is 13.8 Billion Years Old, How Can We See 46 Billion Light Years Away?

There are a few fundamental facts about the Universe — its origin, its history, and what it is today — that are awfully hard to wrap your head around.

There are a few fundamental facts about the Universe — its origin, its history, and what it is today — that are awfully hard to wrap your head around. One of them is the Big Bang, or the idea that the Universe began a certain time ago: 13.8 billion years ago to be precise. That’s the first moment we can describe the Universe as we know it to be today: full of matter and radiation, and the ingredients that would eventually grow into stars, galaxies, planets and human beings. So how far away can we see? You might think, in a Universe limited by the speed of light, that would be 13.8 billion light years: the age of the Universe multiplied by the speed of light. But 13.8 billion light years is far too small to be the right answer. In actuality, we can see for 46 billion light years in all directions, for a total diameter of 92 billion light years.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: medium.com

13 Dec Climate change: From the beginning, models have been remarkably accurate

There are dozens of disciplines and subdisciplines within the broad ambit of climate science, studying everything from ancient geology to the spread of disease. But one discipline in particular is exposed to intense public scrutiny, the subject of long-running political and legal disputes: modeling.

As interesting as the details of climate science may be, what society most needs from it is an answer to a simple question: What the hell is going to happen? What are we in for? That’s the question models seek to answer.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.vox.com

13 Dec NASA: The first map showing the global geology of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan

The first map showing the global geology of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has been completed and fully reveals a dynamic world of dunes, lakes, plains, craters and other terrains. Titan is the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface. But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan what rains down is methane and ethane – hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan’s frigid climate.

“Titan has an active methane-based hydrologic cycle that has shaped a complex geologic landscape, making its surface one of most geologically diverse in the solar system,” said Rosaly Lopes, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and lead author of new research used to develop the map.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: solarsystem.nasa.gov

13 Dec How AI Sees the World — Image Recognition & Algorithmic Bias

Humans are able to see from birth, so we often take it for granted. Trying to teach a machine to see from scratch, however, is a whole other ballpark. But first, what even is “seeing” in the first place?

Vision has three parts:

1. Being able to physically “see” the object in front of you
2. Understanding and recognizing what it is
3. Being able to respond to it

In humans, this process corresponds to our eyes being able to see what is in front of us, then our brains recognizing what it is.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: medium.com

06 Dec What Is Parallax? – How Astronomers Measure Stellar Distance | Space

Parallax is a method of measuring the distance to nearby objects in space. It is also a method used to display 3D images.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.space.com

06 Dec After 42 years in space, Voyager 2 breaks thru the heliosphere

A historic NASA probe sends back a treasure-trove of information from billions of miles away. The probe, launched in 1977, reached interstellar space. 5 new studies detail the data gathered by its instruments.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: bigthink.com

06 Dec Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electricity But Not Heat

Researchers have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat – an incredibly useful property that defies our current understanding of how conductors work.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.sciencealert.com

06 Dec Neptune-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf provides first evidence a planet can survive death of its star

The Neptune-like planet discovered is thought to be more than four times the size of the Earth-sized white dwarf. University of Warwick discovered the ring of gas using the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Evidence of a giant planet orbiting a dead white dwarf star has been found for the first time. Until now there was no example of a planet that had survived a star’s transition to a white dwarf – leaving little hope for our own planet’s future.  

Astronomers say the evidence for the distant planet comes in the form of a disc of gas created from its evaporating atmosphere.

The Neptune-like planet discovered is thought to be more than four times the size of the Earth-sized white dwarf. 

The giant planet orbits the star about once every 10 days, leaving a trail of gas comprised of hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur in its wake. 

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.dailymail.co.uk

06 Dec Helping machines to perceive laws of physics by themselves

ADEPT, an artificial intelligence model developed by MIT researchers, demonstrates an understanding of some basic “intuitive physics” by registering a surprise signal when objects in a scene violate assumed reality, similarly to how human infants and adults would register surprise.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: news.mit.edu