Tomas Martin @ 10-06-2008
Space scientists have come up with a novel way of studying the moon (and possibly later other satellites like Europa). Scientist Sir Martin Sweeting’s Moonlite experiment plans to launch a satellite to orbit the moon. Once in orbit, the satellite would fire four dart-like missiles at the moon’s surface, penetrating three or four metres to study the composition beneath the ground.
Planned for a launch in 2013, the project has had recent tests of the high powered darts in South Wales prove very successful. The subterranean probes are hoped to provide details on the heat flow, seismic activity and water components of our closest astronomical friend.
Meanwhile, the most recent astronomical mission is having problems with its own studies of extraterrestrial soil. The Phoenix lander is struggling to sift the clumpy Martian soil to small enough pieces to study in its compact detectors. The robotic lander is resorting to shaking and sprinkling soil samples with its robotic arm to get material small enough to study.
[picture by SSTL and story via BBC]
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Tomas Martin @ 18-02-2008
Stephen Years @ 28-09-2007
Human rights groups are using commercial satellite imagery to document recent human-rights abuses in Burma. Via the MIT Technology Review:
Backing up human-rights reports that the Burmese military is razing villages of ethnic minorities and herding people into areas under tighter military control, an analysis of satellite images shows chilling scenes of bare ground where villages once stood, new settlements near military camps, and swelling refugee camps just across the border, in Thailand. The new analysis was done by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and human-rights groups.
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Edward Willett @ 20-09-2007
New technologies have a tendency to develop unintended side effects, for both good or ill–just look at how automobiles changed society. Satellite imaging gave us better weather forecasts and more accurate military surveillance–and now, stronger sales leads for home contractors!
A company called Geosemble is using artificial intelligence combined with satellite imagery to direct companies toward local residents whose houses and grounds are in need of repair. The National Science Foundation in the U.S. has given them a Phase I grant to further develop the process.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go wrap my house in aluminum foil.
(Via Gizmag.)
(Photo from Gizmag, too.)
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Stephen Years @ 17-09-2007
Photo Credit: NASA (via Wikimedia Commons)
DigitalGlobe, provider of imagery for Google Earth, will be launching a new satellite dubbed WorldView I next Tuesday, that will boost the accuracy of its satellite images to half-meter resolution. With that type of accuracy the satellite will now be able to pinpoint objects on the Earth at three to 7.5 meters, or 10 to 25 feet. Using known reference points on the ground, the accuracy could rise to about two meters. Additionally the satellite will be able to collect over 600,000 square kilometers of imagery each day, up from the current collection of that amount each week.
It seems that we are getting much closer to the CIC Earth application as envisioned by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, which was able to present real time satellite imagery.
[Via C|Net]
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