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The space station robot CIMON has exchanged its first words with its spacefaring crew.

German astronaut Alexander Gerst talked with the artificially intelligent crew-assistant CIMON during a 90-minute experiment on Nov. 15 aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

According to a statement from the manufacturer, Airbus, Gerst, the commander of the current space station crew, woke up CIMON (the Crew Interactive Mobile CompanioN) with the words “Wake up, CIMON.” In response, CIMON said, “What can I do for you?” [This Flying Space Droid Wants to Make Friends with Astronauts].

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The universe has been making stars for a good 13 billion years or so, and a natural question to ask might be “how many stars have existed in that time?” But now astronomers have taken it several steps further and asked “how much light has been emitted in that time?” Using a new measurement method, the team has apparently managed to quantify all the starlight every produced in the observable universe – and the result is a figure that’ll make your eyes water.

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Looking to download LP DAAC products directly from Data Pool for your research project via a script but unsure how to login using your NASA Earthdata account?

Check out newly released Python and R scripts for downloading files directly from the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) Data Pool. The Python and R scripts show you how to configure a connection to download data directly in Python/R from an Earthdata Login-enabled server, specifically the LP DAAC Data Pool.

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