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Google's Machine Learning Is Analyzing Data From NASA's Kepler Space Telescope (nasa.gov)
NASA writes:
NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST Thursday, Dec. 14, to announce the latest discovery made by its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google. Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence, and demonstrates new ways of analyzing Kepler data... When Kepler launched in March 2009, scientists didn't know how common planets were beyond our solar system. Thanks to Kepler's treasure trove of discoveries, astronomers now believe there may be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky.
Space.com adds: Kepler spots alien worlds by noticing the tiny brightness dips they cause when they cross the face of their host star from the spacecraft's perspective. Kepler is the most accomplished planet hunter in history. It has found more than 2,500 confirmed alien worlds -- about 70 percent of all known exoplanets -- along with a roughly equal number of "candidates" that await confirmation by follow-up observations or analyses. The vast majority of these discoveries have come via observations that Kepler made during its original mission, which ran from 2009 to 2013. Study of these data sets is ongoing; over the past few years, researchers have used improved analysis techniques to spot many exoplanets in data that Kepler gathered a half-decade ago or more.
Space.com describes Thursday's announcement as an exoplanet discovery. (Earlier they reported on the discovery of "a possibly habitable alien world" about 2.2 times the size of earth orbiting a dwarf star "within the range of distances where liquid water could exist on a world's surface".)
Slashdot reader schwit1 points out that other less-credible sites speculate NASA's announcement will be "a major discovery about life beyond earth."
Space.com adds: Kepler spots alien worlds by noticing the tiny brightness dips they cause when they cross the face of their host star from the spacecraft's perspective. Kepler is the most accomplished planet hunter in history. It has found more than 2,500 confirmed alien worlds -- about 70 percent of all known exoplanets -- along with a roughly equal number of "candidates" that await confirmation by follow-up observations or analyses. The vast majority of these discoveries have come via observations that Kepler made during its original mission, which ran from 2009 to 2013. Study of these data sets is ongoing; over the past few years, researchers have used improved analysis techniques to spot many exoplanets in data that Kepler gathered a half-decade ago or more.
Space.com describes Thursday's announcement as an exoplanet discovery. (Earlier they reported on the discovery of "a possibly habitable alien world" about 2.2 times the size of earth orbiting a dwarf star "within the range of distances where liquid water could exist on a world's surface".)
Slashdot reader schwit1 points out that other less-credible sites speculate NASA's announcement will be "a major discovery about life beyond earth."
But I'd be a little happier if it was asteroid-hunting. Particularly asteroids that look as though they might hit Earth any time soon.
Just sayin'... while you've got the two devices connected together...
Kepler is the most accomplished planet hunter in history.
How in the fuck many planet hunters are there, and how long have they been doing it???
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
How in the fuck many planet hunters are there, and how long have they been doing it???
Basically, since the invention of the telescope, and thus the new possibility to see things that nobody could have seen before with a naked eye.
(e.g.: First new planets of our solar system discovered for the first time since antiquity ; William Herschel managing to discover Uranus. The Neptune getting discovered by maths. etc. - though Gallileo had observed it before but without realizing it was a new as-of-yet-unkown object)
Then better telescope offered the possibility to infere the presence of planets in other solar system than our (first one discovered at end of last century).
Eventually, a decade ago, NASA built Kepler, the best ever telescope at this task (because it was specifically designed to be able to fulfill this mission).
So in short : discovering new bodies in the sky has been a long history (since we could finally use something else than naked eyes).
Kepler is the most recent such tool, and as it was built for exo-planet discovery among its missions, it's the current best tool.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Now we can look forward to some space themed cat spiral images. Can't wait.
“But what do you do? You just there?” Case shrugged, put the vodka and the shuriken down on the cabinet and lit a Yeheyuan.
“I talk to my own kind.”
“But you’re the whole thing. Talk to yourself?”
“There’s others. I found one already. Series of transmissions recorded over a period of eight years, in the nineteen-seventies. ’Til there was me, natch, there was nobody to know, nobody to answer.”
“From where?”
“Centauri system.”
“Oh,” Case said. “Yeah? No shit?”
“No shit.”
And then the screen was blank.
of putting machine learning to good use!
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
So they can sell more ads.
Seriously though, this is like a sponsored announcement. Google puts sponsor money into NASA to appear cool instead of privacy sucking evil ad broker. NASA puts Google into news story. Slashdot happily places advertorial.
Probably not the type of information they would give out in a teleconference. Unless the alien life is coming here and the teleconference is from a bunker.
So, given that we have Slashdot, and we have Google, and we have NASA, which part of this process would you like to see go away?
Slashdot telling us about it?
NASA telling slashdot about it?
NASA hunting for planets?
Google helping NASA with sponsor money?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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