Category: 7. Science

For the first time, a satellite has used onboard AI to autonomously decide where and when to capture a scientific image — all in under 90 seconds, with no human input.

The technology, called Dynamic Targeting, was tested by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) earlier this month. It was installed aboard a briefcase-sized satellite built and operated by UK-based startup Open Cosmos, and carried a machine learning processor developed by Dublin-based firm Ubotica.  

In the test, the satellite tilted forward to scan 500km ahead of its orbit and snapped a preview image. Ubotica’s AI quickly analysed the scene to check for cloud cover. If the skies were clear, the satellite tilted back to take a detailed photo of the surface. If clouds obscured the view, it skipped the shot — saving time, storage, and bandwidth.

“If you can be smart about what you’re taking pictures of, then you only image the ground and skip the clouds,”  said Ben Smith of JPL, which funds the Dynamic Targeting work. “This technology will help scientists get a much higher proportion of usable data.”

Brian Quinn, chief strategy officer at Ubotica, said that until now, satellites have merely acted as passive data collectors. They image whatever happens to be beneath them and beam all that data — useful or not — back to Earth. Scientists then sort through the backlog.

“It takes post-processing, which could be days later, to say, ‘Hey, there was a fire. Hey, there was a harmful algal bloom’,” said Quinn in an article published on NASA’s website earlier this year. 

NASA, Ubotica, and OpenCosmos say the system could also be expanded to spot wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and severe storms faster than ever before from space. 

The recent test builds on previous partnerships involving the three parties. In 2021, Ubotica demonstrated real-time AI cloud detection aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as part of a broader research collaboration with JPL. Then, in 2024, Open Cosmos launched HAMMER, an AI-powered satellite equipped with a hyperspectral camera and Ubotica’s machine learning processor.

Senegal has officially joined the Artemis Accords, becoming the 56th nation and the fourth African country to commit to a shared vision for peaceful and transparent space exploration.

The signing ceremony was held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday (July 24), where Maram Kairé, Director-General of the Senegalese Space Study Agency (ASES), signed the Artemis Accords alongside Senegal’s Ambassador to the United States, Abdoul Wahab Haidara. NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes and State Department official Jonathan Pratt represented the U.S.

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Chris Heinrich will never forget the winter day he and his family evacuated their home in Altadena, California, as a vertical wall of flame was slowly bearing down on their neighborhood from the mountains. “It was dark,” he told Slate. “There was no internet, my daughter was crying, the wind was blowing.”

Even as the fires approached, he said, he didn’t really believe that their house would burn. This was, after all, Los Angeles County—the fire department was well prepared, and a network of concrete roads separated the dry, flammable forests from most of the residential areas. But the next day, he got a text from a neighbor: “It’s all gone.”

Heinrich’s home was one of more than 18,000 structures destroyed in January’s devastating L.A. wildfires. Unlike many houses in the state, however, it wasn’t completely erased—at least not physically: A painstakingly rendered 3D version survived on Heinrich’s laptop.

Heinrich, a physicist turned entrepreneur, is the CEO and co-founder of tech company Polycam, which makes an app that transforms smartphone cameras into 3D lidar (short for light detection and ranging) scanners. Essentially, lidar works like radar, except it bounces beams of light instead of radio waves off surfaces to generate a 3D picture. In the weeks leading up to the fires, Heinrich said, he had been testing a suite of new features for the app, making his house “probably the most 3D-scanned home on Earth.” Now those scans have become invaluable proof for his family’s insurance claim.

A handful of other homeowners across L.A. have been able to refer to similar 3D reconstructions for insurance purposes; some even plan to repurpose their scans as blueprints to rebuild their houses. As climate change continues to exacerbate disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes, such technology may soon become the best way for homeowners to document their lives and possessions. Scientists and archivists have even begun applying the tech to digitally preserve historic sites vulnerable to extreme weather. Although the tech is typically used by civil engineers for mapping, and by autonomous vehicles such as Tesla’s robotaxis, it may just be one of the most useful tools to emerge during the age of climate disaster.

Stephanie Lin is the vice president of Matterport, a California-based company specializing in 3D-capture cameras. Though Matterport’s lidar technology was originally developed to help real estate agents give virtual property tours, over the years it has also proved indispensable for homeowners faced with climate catastrophe. “Communities were not built with this kind of extreme weather in mind,” Lin told me. “This gives you forensic backup.”

Lidar has been around since the 1960s. It was originally deployed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research to track and measure clouds for more-accurate weather predictions. NASA’s Apollo mission even used it to map regions of the moon. But those early systems were large, expensive, and cumbersome. Even into the 2000s, lidar cameras remained prohibitively pricey for the average person.

Then companies like Polycam, Matterport, and their competitor Docusketch enabled cameras or smartphones—a technology that most people already have on hand—to act as lidar scanners. Most smartphone cameras released in the past five years are equipped with tiny lasers to improve functions like autofocus, and lidar-scanning apps simply repurpose these existing features. That’s a huge time-saver for insurance agents or restoration specialists looking to appraise a property.

David Ma, of Rainbow Restoration in Alberta, Canada, has been using phone-based lidar to scan damaged structures for a couple of years. He told me he previously had to do that work by hand, taking photos and copious notes. “That could all potentially take four or five hours,” Ma said. Now “we’re able to scan an entire home in probably 20 minutes.”

In addition to saving time, digital preservation is becoming increasingly relevant in a world plagued by climate catastrophe. This extends beyond our homes and personal possessions. “We live in a future that is changing radically because of anthropogenic climate change,” Eira Tansey, an archivist and founder of archival services consultancy Memory Rising, told Slate. “That sort of demands that archivists rethink some of our long-held practices.”

Much of Tansey’s work involves digitizing documents from physical structures, such as property records, floor plans, and blueprints. These papers are important from a historical perspective—but they’re also critical for things like home insurance.

When Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast in 2012, it caused billions of dollars in property damage and all but wiped some small towns off the map. Among them was the township of Brick, New Jersey. Brick’s local government had begun investing in a digital archive system six years prior to scan and digitize physical documents. In the wake of the storm, the township was able to present these digital records to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as to state disaster management, insurance adjusters, and engineering firms, to obtain over $14 million in recovery funds. Cases like this, Tansey says, highlight the need for detailed virtual records.

Lidar scans can add an extra layer of information to these existing documents. While digitized floor plans can give a sense of a structure’s size and layout, interior scans actually generate a picture of what the inside of a building looked like, down to the furniture, the appliances, and the art on the walls.

That aspect was essential for Ethan Goldspier, a Polycam employee whose home in the Palisades also burned down in the L.A. fires. Goldspier’s insurance company required proof of lost personal property in order to reimburse his family for it—an expensive couch, for example, or fancy appliances. Having 3D scans that captured the full inventory of each room enormously expedited what could have been a long, drawn-out process. “If you have a digital representation, there’s no argument,” he told me. “The proof is right there.”

This aspect of lidar scanning makes it appealing to researchers documenting delicate archaeological sites. Matterport, for example, has been used to examine the interior of several Egyptian pyramids. Andrew Law, a sociologist at Newcastle University in the U.K., has used lidar mapping to digitally preserve structures along China’s Yangtze River that were threatened or wiped out by extensive damming. “It offers us a chance to conserve things that were already destroyed,” he said.

Of course, technologies like Matterport and Polycam aren’t perfect. Users have to make sure their scans are in focus and thorough enough to paint a clear representation of their home. And simply having a 3D digital replica of a structure doesn’t mean you can bring it back. The ground on which it stood might be too damaged or waterlogged to rebuild, and the prospect of future disasters may deter insurance companies from providing coverage again.

This is becoming a problem in California. Six months before the L.A. fires, Heinrich’s previous insurance company dropped his family’s fire policy. Fortunately, he found comprehensive new coverage after a few weeks, but thousands of other Californians have not been so lucky.

There is a cost trade-off as well. While Matterport’s basic kit starts at $149, its most expensive bundle is upward of $9,000. Polycam is free to download, but the phone app offers a somewhat less detailed virtual re-creation compared with a dedicated 3D-capture camera.

For Heinrich and Goldspier, peering inside the digital ghost of their homes has been a bittersweet experience. Both are glad the records exist. They’ve made the insurance claim infinitely easier, and Goldspier eventually plans to use them as a blueprint to help rebuild. But the process has taken an emotional toll.

“This is like the death of a house … you can’t replace the memories you had there,” Heinrich said. “It’s hard and sad to see.”

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Millipedes rarely make headlines. Their many legs and secretive lifestyles keep them in the background. Yet a closer look reveals something extraordinary. These ancient arthropods produce chemical compounds that may lead to new therapies for neurological disorders and pain relief.

Emily Mevers and her team from Virginia Tech recently isolated new molecules from the secretions of Andrognathus corticarius. This millipede species was discovered on campus in Stadium Woods.

The new molecules include two rare classes of alkaloids – andrognathanols and andrognathines. The findings demonstrate how millipede compounds may help with pain.

Rare compounds found in millipedes

Millipede chemistry belongs to a narrow lineage. Only species from the subterclass Colobognatha produce terpenoid alkaloids. This group includes four species-rich orders. Among them, Platydesmida stands out for its structural diversity.

Earlier research focused on just one order, Polyzoniida. But more recent studies revealed that Platydesmida millipedes produce a much wider variety of complex alkaloids. Some of these compounds are structurally unique in the animal kingdom.

Andrognathines have a chemical structure made of two connected rings. One ring has five atoms, and the other has six. Together, this makes a “5,6-heterocyclic core.” Attached to this core are small chemical groups called ester side chains, which help the molecule interact with other substances.

Andrognathanols are even more complex. Their core structure connects four rings in a pattern labeled 6,6,6,5 (based on the number of atoms in each ring). What makes them special is that they contain seven continuous stereogenic centers.

That means there are seven spots in a row where the 3D shape of the molecule can flip, making it highly detailed and difficult to recreate in the lab.

Millipede chemicals may target pain

Each compound was carefully analyzed using high-resolution liquid chromatography and NMR techniques. The scientists noted key mass fragments that indicated differences between andrognathines and other millipede alkaloids.

These compounds form part of the millipede’s defense strategy. When disturbed, the animal releases the secretions through ozopores on its sides. The alkaloids affect ant behavior, causing them to freeze or slow down. This is a likely defense tactic.

But that is not all. Some andrognathanols showed structural similarities to pumiliotoxins. These molecules are known to act on sodium channels in nerve cells. That similarity raised hopes for possible biomedical uses.

Millipede secretions change ant behavior

The researchers tested the secretions’ effects on ants (Aphaenogaster sp.), a predator often found near these millipedes. During controlled assays, ants exposed to these compounds exhibited prolonged freezing behavior compared to control groups.

The compounds did not significantly change how long ants stayed near the chemical source. But their altered movement hinted at neural interference, possibly through receptor modulation.

Every mature A. corticarius millipede secretes these alkaloids in large amounts. Their secretion quantity correlates with body size and the number of ozopores. These are small glands that release the compounds when the millipede is threatened.

Some millipede compounds target pain

The findings are hopeful because of the Sigma-1 receptor. This receptor helps regulate pain and neuroplasticity. It is also linked to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and neuropathic pain.

Previous research found that similar compounds from another millipede, Ischnocybe plicata, potently bind to Sigma-1. That work sparked interest in millipede alkaloids as potential drug candidates.

Mevers’ team tested two andrognathines and three andrognathanols. Compound 1 showed mild binding to Sigma-1, with some selectivity over Sigma-2. Others showed less activity. But their unique structures and neuroactive effects still make them promising.

“These compounds are quite complex, so they’re going to take some time to synthesize in the lab,” said Mevers.

Millipedes and future pain drugs

The path from chemical discovery to drug approval is long. First, scientists must replicate the molecules in the lab. Then they can test their effects on human cells and animal models.

Eventually, these efforts may lead to treatments for chronic pain or neurodegenerative diseases.

Millipedes, with their fossil record stretching back to the Cretaceous, may soon help modern medicine. Their secretions are not just defense tools. They are blueprints for the next generation of drugs.

The study is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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By Ashley Strickland, CNN

(CNN) — The asteroid known as 2024 YR4 is out of sight yet still very much on scientists’ minds.

The building-sized object, which initially appeared to be on a potential collision course with Earth, is currently zooming beyond the reach of telescopes on its orbit around the sun. But as scientists wait for it to reappear, its revised trajectory is now drawing attention to another possible target: the moon.

Discovered at the end of 2024, the space rock looked at first as if it might hit our planet by December 22, 2032. The chance of that impact changed with every new observation, peaking at 3.1% in February — odds that made it the riskiest asteroid ever observed.

Ground- and space-based telescope observations were crucial in helping astronomers narrow in on 2024 YR4’s size and orbit. With more precise measurements, researchers were ultimately able to rule out an Earth impact.

The latest observations of the asteroid in early June, before YR4 disappeared from view, have improved astronomers’ knowledge of where it will be in seven years by almost 20%, according to NASA.

That data shows that even with Earth avoiding direct impact, YR4 could still pose a threat in late 2032 by slamming into the moon. The impact would be a once-in-a-lifetime event for humanity to witness — but it could also send fine-grained lunar material hurtling toward our planet.

While Earth wouldn’t face any significant physical danger should the asteroid strike the moon, there is a chance that any astronauts or infrastructure on the lunar surface at that time could be at risk — as could satellites orbiting our planet that we depend on to keep vital aspects of life, including navigation and communications, running smoothly.

Any missions in low-Earth orbit could also be in the pathway of the debris, though the International Space Station is scheduled to be deorbited before any potential impact.

Initially, YR4 was seen as a case study in why scientists do the crucial work of planetary defense, discovering and tracking asteroids to determine which ones have a chance of colliding with Earth. Now, astronomers say this one asteroid could redefine the range of risks the field addresses, expanding the purview of the work to include monitoring asteroids that might be headed for the moon as well.

“We’re starting to realize that maybe we need to extend that shield a little bit further,” said Dr. Paul Wiegert, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Western Ontario. “We now have things worth protecting that are a bit further away from Earth, so our vision is hopefully expanding a little bit to encompass that.”

In the meantime, researchers are assessing just how much chaos a potential YR4 lunar impact could create — and whether anything can be done to mitigate it.

‘City killer’ on the moon

The threatening hunk of rock appears as just a speck of light through even the strongest astronomical tools. In reality, YR4 is likely about 60 meters (about 200 feet) in diameter, according to observations in March by the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space-based observatory in operation.

“Size equals energy,” said Julien de Wit, associate professor of planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who observed YR4 with Webb. “Knowing YR4’s size helped us understand how big of an explosion it could be.”

Astronomers believe they have found most of the near-Earth asteroids the field would classify as “planet killers” — space rocks that are 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) across or larger and could be civilization-ending, said Dr. Andy Rivkin, planetary astronomer from the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. The planet killer that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago and led to the extinction of dinosaurs was estimated to be roughly 6 miles (about 10 kilometers) in diameter.

Smaller asteroids such as YR4, which was colloquially dubbed a “city killer” after its discovery, could cause regional devastation if they collide with our planet. About 40% of near-Earth space rocks larger than 140 meters (460 feet) but smaller than a kilometer — capable of more widespread destruction — have been identified, according to NASA.

But astronomers have never really had a chance to watch a collision of that size occur on the moon in real time, Wiegert said. The latest glimpses of YR4 on June 3 before it passed out of view revealed a 4.3% chance of a YR4 lunar impact — small but decent enough odds for scientists to consider how such a scenario might play out.

A striking meteor shower — and a risk

Initial calculations suggest the impact has the largest chance of occurring on the near side of the moon — the side we can see from Earth.

“YR4 is so faint and small we were able to measure its position with JWST longer than we were able to do it from the ground,” said Rivkin, who has been leading the Webb study of YR4. “And that lets us calculate a much more precise orbit for it, so we now have a much better idea of where it will be and won’t be.”

The collision could create a bright flash that would be visible with the naked eye for several seconds, according to Wiegert, lead author of a recent paper submitted to the American Astronomical Society journals analyzing the potential lunar impact.

The collision could create an impact crater on the moon estimated at 1 kilometer wide (0.6 miles wide), Wiegert said — about the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona, Rivkin added. It would be the largest impact on the moon in 5,000 years and could release up to 108 kilograms (238 pounds) of lunar rocks and dust, according to the modeling in Wiegert’s study.

Even pieces of debris that are just tens of centimeters in size could present a hazard for any astronauts who may be present on the moon, or any structures they have built for research and habitation, Wiegert said. The moon has no atmosphere, so the debris from the event could be widespread on the lunar surface, he added.

On average, the moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away from Earth, according to NASA.

Particles the size of large sand grains, ranging from 0.1 to 10 millimeters in size, of lunar material could reach Earth between a few days and a few months after the asteroid strike because they’ll be traveling incredibly fast, creating an intense, eye-catching meteor shower, Wiegert said.

“There’s absolutely no danger to anyone on the surface,” Wiegert said. “We’re not expecting large boulders or anything larger than maybe a sugar cube, and our atmosphere will protect us very nicely from that. But they’re traveling faster than a speeding bullet, so if they were to hit a satellite, that could cause some damage.”

Not all lunar debris that reaches the Earth is so small, and it depends on the angle and type of impact to the moon, according to Washington University in St. Louis. Space rocks slamming into the lunar surface over millions of years have resulted in various sizes of lunar meteorites found on Earth.

Preparing for impact

Hundreds to thousands of impacts from millimeter-size debris could affect Earth’s satellite fleet, meaning satellites could experience up to 10 years’ equivalent of meteor debris exposure in a few days, Wiegert said.

Humankind depends on vital space infrastructure, said Dan Oltrogge, chief scientist at COMSPOC, a space situational awareness software company that develops solutions for handling hazards such as space debris.

“Space touches almost every aspect of our lives today, ranging from commerce, communications, travel, industry, education, and social media, so a loss of access to and effective use of space presents a serious risk to humanity,” Oltrogge said.

The event is unlikely to trigger a Kessler Syndrome scenario in which debris from broken satellites would collide with others to create a domino effect or fall to Earth. Instead, it might be more akin to when a piece of gravel strikes a car windshield at high speed, meaning solar panels or other delicate satellite parts might be damaged, but the satellite will remain in one piece, Wiegert said.

While a temporary loss of communication and navigation from satellites would create widespread difficulties on Earth, Wiegert said he believes the potential impact is something for satellite operators, rather than the public, to worry about.

Protecting Earth and the moon

Scientists and astronomers around the world are thinking about the possible scenarios since they could not rule out a lunar impact before YR4 disappeared from view, Wiegert said.

“We realize that an impact to the moon could be consequential, so what would we do?” de Wit said.

A potential planetary defense plan might be clearer if the asteroid were headed straight for Earth. Rivkin helped test one approach in September 2022 as the principal investigator of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which intentionally slammed a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022.

Dimorphos is a moonlet asteroid that orbits a larger parent asteroid known as Didymos. Neither poses a threat to Earth, but the double-asteroid system was a perfect target to test deflection technology because Dimorphos’ size is comparable to asteroids that could harm our planet in the event of an impact.

The DART mission crashed a spacecraft into the asteroid at 13,645 miles per hour (6 kilometers per second) to find out whether such a kinetic impact would be enough to change the motion of a celestial object in space.

It worked. Since the day of the collision, data from ground-based telescopes has revealed that the DART spacecraft did alter Dimorphos’ orbital period — or how long it takes to make a single revolution around Didymos — by about 32 or 33 minutes. And scientists have continued to observe additional changes to the pair, including how the direct hit likely deformed Dimorphos due to the asteroid’s composition.

Similarly, if YR4 strikes the moon and doesn’t result in damaging effects for satellites, it could create a tremendous opportunity for researchers to learn how the lunar surface responds to impacts, Wiegert said.

But whether it would make sense to send a DART-like mission to knock YR4 off a collision course with the moon remains to be seen. It will depend on future risk assessments by planetary defense groups when the asteroid comes back into view around 2028, de Wit said.

Though defense plans for a potential moon impact still aren’t clear, YR4’s journey underscores the importance — and the challenges — of tracking objects that are often impossible to see.

Hidden threats

YR4 was detected by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS telescope, in Río Hurtado, Chile, two days after the asteroid had already made its closest pass by Earth, hidden by the bright glare of the sun as it approached our planet.

The same thing occurred when an asteroid measuring roughly 20 meters (about 65 feet) across hit the atmosphere and exploded above Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013, damaging thousands of buildings, according to the European Space Agency. While no one died, about 1,500 people were injured when the windows in homes and businesses blew out due to the shock wave.

Trying to observe asteroids is challenging for many reasons, Rivkin said. Asteroids are incredibly faint and hard to see because rather than emitting their own light, they only reflect sunlight. And because of their relatively tiny size, interpreting observations is not a clear-cut process like looking through a telescope at a planet such as Mars or Jupiter.

“For asteroids, we only see them as a point of light, and so by measuring how bright they are and measuring their temperature, basically we can get a size based on how big do they have to be in order to be this bright,” Rivkin said.

For decades, astronomers have had to search for faint asteroids by night, which means missing any that may be on a path coming from the direction of the sun — creating the world’s biggest blind spot for ground-based telescopes that can’t block out our star’s luminosity.

But upcoming telescopes — including NASA’s NEO Surveyor expected to launch by the end of 2027 and the European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Mission in the InfraRed, or NEOMIR satellite, set for liftoff in the early 2030s — could shrink that blind spot, helping researchers detect asteroids much closer to the sun.

“NEOMIR would have detected asteroid 2024 YR4 about a month earlier than ground-based telescopes did,” said Richard Moissl, head of ESA’s Planetary Defence Office, in a statement. “This would have given astronomers more time to study the asteroid’s trajectory and allowed them to much sooner rule out any chance of Earth impact in 2032.”

NASA and other space agencies are constantly on the lookout for potentially hazardous asteroids, defined as such based on their distance from Earth and ability to cause significant damage should an impact occur. Asteroids that can’t get any closer to our planet than one-twentieth of Earth’s distance from the sun are not considered to be potentially hazardous asteroids, according to NASA.

When the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located in the Andes in Chile, released its first stunning images of the cosmos in June, researchers revealed the discovery of more than 2,100 previously unknown asteroids after seven nights of observations.
Of those newly detected space rocks, seven were near-Earth objects.

A near-Earth object is an asteroid or comet on an orbit that brings it within 120 million miles (about 190 million kilometers) of the sun, which means it has the potential to pass near Earth, according to NASA. None of the new ones detected by Rubin were determined to pose a threat to our planet.

Rubin will act as a great asteroid hunter, de Wit said, while telescopes such as Webb and NEO Surveyor could be trackers that follow up on Rubin’s discoveries. A proposal by Rivkin and de Wit to use Webb to observe YR4 in the spring of 2026 has just been approved. Webb is the only telescope with a chance of glimpsing the asteroid before 2028.

“This newly approved program will buy decision makers two extra years to prepare — though most likely to relax, as there is an 80% chance of ruling out impact — while providing key experience-based lessons for handling future potential impactors to be discovered by Vera Rubin,” de Wit said.

And because of the twists and turns of YR4’s tale thus far, asteroids that have potential to affect the moon could become objects of even more intense study in the future.

“If this really is a thing that we only have to worry about every 5,000 years or something, then maybe that’s less pressing,” Rivkin said. “But even just asking what would we do if we did see something that was going to hit the moon is at least something that we can now start thinking about.”

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