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Last year, Irish astronomy took a leap forward with the construction of the LOFAR radio telescope in Birr, Co. Offaly. Sean Mooney, who was involved in the telescope’s construction, reports on its significance for the future of astronomy.

Last year, Birr was thrust to the forefront of astronomy. What may seem a quaint and unassuming town, Birr, Co. Offaly, is steeped in astronomical history and it has regained its scientific prominence with the construction of a new telescope.

In 1842, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, began construction of a telescope on his estate, Birr Castle demesne, which would colloquially come to be known as The Leviathan. Not only was it the largest telescope in the world, it held this title for a staggering 72 years. This fact can be appreciated most in the current era of rapid technological improvements where the best of anything in the world holds the title for weeks rather than years before a better model comes along.

Continue reading “The Next Generation of Radio Astronomy” »

This month, the power of artificial intelligence will be coming to more augmented reality developers as a leader in the game and 3D software development space and a major force behind the current school of cloud-based AI have officially announced a new partnership.

In a post on Unity’s website on Tuesday, the company revealed a partnership with computing giant IBM to launch the IBM Watson Unity SDK. This programming interface will open up new cloud-based AI services for developers to use in their applications. And, with AR and AI having become increasingly intertwined technologies, this is only good news for AR developers.

Continue reading “Dev Report: IBM & Unity Partner to Offer AI Tool That Could Make Augmented Reality Apps Smarter” »

Ninety-five new exoplanets — planets that orbit around stars other than our sun — can now be added to the long list of planets that have been discovered since the 1990s.

The discovery was made by a Danish Ph.D. student with the help of the once damaged Kepler telescope, reports ScienceNordic.

Andrew Mayo from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space) is behind the discovery, which is described in a new study.

Continue reading “Danish researcher finds 95 new planets” »

AUSTIN, Texas — Mining asteroids for water and other resources could someday become a trillion-dollar business, but not without astronomers to point the way.

At least that’s the view of Martin Elvis, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who’s been taking a close look at the science behind asteroid mining.

Continue reading “Asteroid miners might need a few good applied astronomers to show them the way” »

“The recent launch of the SpaceX rocket Falcon Heavy is a good illustration of the entry of efficient and innovative private players into an arena long considered the preserve of national governments. But this does not mean that national competition in outer space is disappearing. If anything, it is actually accelerating in Asia. China’s growing space prowess is leading to a space race with India and Japan, which are beginning to pool their resources to better match Beijing.”

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What will happen when the International Space Station ends?

The Starfighters are lobbying to become the first certified astronaut training fleet endorsed by NASA.

Three billion miles away on the farthest known major planet in our solar system, an ominous, dark storm — once big enough to stretch across the Atlantic Ocean from Boston to Portugal — is shrinking out of existence as seen in pictures of Neptune taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

The United Arab Emirates is seeking ideas from around the world that explore the possibilities of space settlement and habitation.