Sometimes humans are better at astronomy than computers.
Not that it’s a competition, but we’re definitely winning.
The number of active fires recorded in the Brazilian Amazon in August-September 2022 was the highest since 2010, according to an article published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Besides the record number of fires (74,398), the researchers found they were due not to extreme drought, as in 2010, but to recent deforestation by humans.
“The idea of publishing our findings came up when we analyzed data provided free of charge by the Queimadas program,” said Guilherme Mataveli, first author of the article. ‘Queimadas’ in Portuguese means burnings, and he was referring to the forest fire monitoring service run by the National Space Research Institute (INPE). Mataveli is currently a postdoctoral researcher in INPE’s Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division.
The number of fires typically rises every year in August and September, when the weather favors fire in about half of the Amazon. “But the surge in the number of fires in 2010 was due to an extreme drought event that occurred in a large part of the region, whereas nothing similar occurred in 2022, so other factors must have been to blame,” Mataveli said.
While the U.S. was busy celebrating the Super Bowl on Sunday night, Europeans had their own spectacle. Early Monday morning, a bright flash streaked across the skies over western Europe as an asteroid discovered just hours earlier made its impact with Earth’s atmosphere. The asteroid, dubbed Sar2667, was first detected on the evening of Feb. 12 by astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky in Hungary.
Saudi Arabia will send its first two astronauts, including its first female astronaut, to the International Space Station (ISS) during the second quarter of 2023, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Sunday.
Saudi nationals Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali al-Qarni will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission in an accomplishment that comes in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. The spaceflight is set to launch from the United States to the ISS.
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ICON has also completed a series of 3D-printed homes in Tabasco, Mexico. The company partnered with charity New Story in order to build 500 square-foot (47 square-metre) houses for families in need of shelter.
This community of homes withstood a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in June 2020 with no visible damage.
The Texan construction technology company is collaborating with BIG on a robotic construction project for the Moon.
Continue reading “ICON builds 3D-printed houses from disaster-proof concrete in Texas” »
It’s a galaxy-eat-galaxy universe out there.
Astronomers used the motion of stars to reconstruct a galactic collision that happened 2 billion years ago at the nearest neighboring large galaxy.
The powerful flare caused a radio blackout over South America.
The Sun sent out a very powerful solar flare in the morning hours of Saturday EST time. NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory captured a video of the same.
Sunspots and solar flares.
Continue reading “The Sun let out a powerful solar flare causing radio blackouts” »
Is there Life on the Moons of the Outer Solar System? Research in extreme environments on Earth will help us to answer this question.
Posted on Big Think, direct weblnk at.
Posted on Big Think.
Continue reading “Is There Life on the Icy Moons of our Solar System?” »
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fK3AQgt47z4
In 2021, Carbon Robotics unveiled the third-generation of its Autonomous Weeder, a smart farming robot that identifies weeds and then destroys them with high-power lasers. The company now has taken the technology from that robot and built a pull-behind LaserWeeder — and it kills twice as many weeds.
The weedkiller challenge: Weeds compete with plants for space, sunlight, and soil nutrients. They can also make it easier for insect pests to harm crops, so weed control is a top concern for farmers.
Continue reading “Farming robot kills 200,000 weeds per hour with lasers” »
The world of spectroscopy has continued to expand throughout history based on the contributions of many brilliant scientists. This month we highlight prominent Black scientists whose innovations have helped shape spectroscopy as we know it today and have created space for others like them to succeed.
