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Category: mapping – Page 20

Scientists Intrigued by Jet Inside Jupiter

Jupiter is iconic, with its swirls of water and ammonia vapor that characterize its outer surface and its distinctive Giant Red Spot, a gigantic storm raging across its face.

But its mysteries abound — such as Jupiter’s strange and asymmetrical magnetic field, which has a strong area of magnetism in its equator called the “Great Blue Spot” — blue because that’s how it’s color-coded in maps tracing the magnetic field.

In an effort to understand the planet’s magnetic field better, a team of American scientists from Harvard University, the California Institute of Technology, NASA and the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas studied an atmospheric jet — a high speed current in the gas giant’s atmosphere — in the Great Blue Spot. Their finding? It’s a dynamic system that fluctuates every four years or so.

Researchers reach new AI benchmark for computer graphics

Computer graphic simulations can represent natural phenomena such as tornados, underwater, vortices, and liquid foams more accurately thanks to an advancement in creating artificial intelligence (AI) neural networks.

Working with a multi-institutional team of researchers, Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Bo Zhu combined computer graphic simulations with machine learning models to create enhanced simulations of known phenomena. The new benchmark could lead to researchers constructing representations of other phenomena that have yet to be simulated.

Zhu co-authored the paper “Fluid Simulation on Neural Flow Maps.” The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group in Computer Graphics and Interactive Technology (SIGGRAPH) gave it a best paper award in December at the SIGGRAPH Asia conference in Sydney, Australia.

Space observatory in Chile unveils new maps of the universe

We are always making strides to unravel the mysteries of our universe. Now, a small observatory nestled in the Andes mountains of northern Chile has provided a snapshot of the cosmos in space. This one is clearer than we imagined.

The U.S. National Science Foundation Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), spearheaded by astrophysicists from Johns Hopkins University, mapped a whopping 75 percent of the sky.

AI Is Everywhere—Including Countless Applications You’ve Likely Never Heard Of

One major area of our lives that uses largely “hidden” AI is transportation. Millions of flights and train trips are coordinated by AI all over the world. These AI systems are meant to optimize schedules to reduce costs and maximize efficiency.

Artificial intelligence can also manage real-time road traffic by analyzing traffic patterns, volume and other factors, and then adjusting traffic lights and signals accordingly. Navigation apps like Google Maps also use AI optimization algorithms to find the best path in their navigation systems.

AI is also present in various everyday items. Robot vacuum cleaners use AI software to process all their sensor inputs and deftly navigate our homes.

Beyond Binary: The Light-Driven Computing Revolution

Researchers develop a computer from an array of VCSELs with optical feedback.

In our data-driven era, solving complex problems efficiently is crucial. However, traditional computers often struggle with this task when dealing with a large number of interacting variables, leading to inefficiencies such as the von Neumann bottleneck. A new type of collective state computing has emerged to address this issue by mapping these optimization problems onto something called the Ising problem in magnetism.

Understanding the Ising Problem.

Submolecular-scale control of phototautomerization

Weak laser light confined at the apex of a scanning tunnelling microscope tip can drive the tautomerization of a free-base phthalocyanine with atomic-scale precision. The combination of tip-enhanced photoluminescence spectroscopy and hyperspectral mapping paired with theoretical modelling then unravel an excited-state mediated reaction.

Galactic Symphony: The Oscillating Wonders of the Radcliffe Wave

“It’s the largest coherent structure that we know of, and it’s really, really close to us,” said study co-author, Dr. Catherine Zucker.

A recent study published in Nature investigates further evidence that a gaseous cloud both looks and behaves like an oscillating ocean wave, giving birth to new stars as it traverses the Milky Way Galaxy, which has since been dubbed the Radcliffe Wave. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and holds the potential to help astronomers better understand the beautiful and fascinating aspects of our cosmos.

Image obtained from an animation of the Radcliffe Wave with our Sun (yellow dot). (Credit: Ralf Konietzka, Alyssa Goodman, and WorldWide Telescope)

This study builds on a 2020 study used data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission to build a 3D dust map demonstrating that the Radcliffe Wave was there, but the data proved inconclusive pertaining to the movement of the dust cloud. The Radcliffe Wave is approximately 500 light-years from Earth and stretches 9,000 light-years across, making it an ideal target for astronomers to examine. For this most recent study, the team used updated Gaia data to build new 3D maps that demonstrated the Radcliffe Wave both looks and moves like a wave.