Quantum AI Computer Coming to NASA & Google

Why Are Google & NASA Getting a Quantum Computer?

Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor

Date: 16 May 2013 Time: 05:15 PM ET

A quantum computer chip can process information several orders of magnitude faster than an ordinary silicon computer chip. CREDIT: Erick Lucero

Think your computer is pretty fast? Think again.

Compared with the newest quantum computer from D-Wave Systems of Burnaby, British Columbia, even the world's most powerful supercomputers are ploddingly slow, The New York Times reports.

The ability of quantum computing to solve problems thousands of times faster than traditional computers is attracting attention from some of the world's largest and most powerful institutions.

Search engine giant Google announced today (May 16) it was teaming with NASA Ames Research Center and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) to create the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, to be housed later this year at the NASA Ames facility in Moffett Field, Calif., northwest of San Jose.

More - Link >>> http://www.livescience.com/32080-google-nasa-quantum-computer-d-wave.html

Source: LiveScience.com .

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Saturn Moon Titan: 1st Global Topographic Map

Cassini Shapes First Global Topographic Map of Titan

These polar maps show the first global, topographic mapping of Saturn's moon Titan, using data from NASA's Cassini mission. To create these maps, scientists employed a mathematical process called splining, which uses smooth curved surfaces to "join" the areas between grids of existing topography profiles obtained by Cassini's radar instrument.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/JHUAPL/Cornell/Weizmann
› Full image and caption

May 15, 2013

Scientists have created the first global topographic map of Saturn's moon Titan, giving researchers a valuable tool for learning more about one of the most Earth-like and interesting worlds in the solar system. The map was just published as part of a paper in the journal Icarus.

Titan is Saturn's largest moon - at 1,600 miles (2,574 kilometers) across it's bigger than planet Mercury - and is the second-largest moon in the solar system. Scientists care about Titan because it's the only moon in the solar system known to have clouds, surface liquids and a mysterious, thick atmosphere. The cold atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, like Earth's, but the organic compound methane on Titan acts the way water vapor does on Earth, forming clouds and falling as rain and carving the surface with rivers. Organic chemicals, derived from methane, are present in Titan's atmosphere, lakes and rivers and may offer clues about the origins of life.

More - Link >>> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-161&cid=release_2013-161

Source: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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Video: Bright Explosion - Meteor Hits the Moon

May 17, 2013:  For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. "Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year.
They've just seen the biggest explosion in the history of the program.

"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."

A new ScienceCast video describes the bright lunar explosion of March 17, 2013. Play it

Anyone looking at the Moon at the moment of impact could have seen the explosion--no telescope required.  For about one second, the impact site was glowing like a 4th magnitude star.

More & Video - http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/16may_lunarimpact/

Source: NASA Science News.

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North Pole Shifting Due to Greenland Ice Melting

Climate Change Has Shifted the Locations of Earth's North and South Poles

Increased melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and other ice losses worldwide have helped to move the North Pole several centimeters east each year since 2005

By Richard A. Lovett and Nature magazine

 

Scientists suspect that melting ice has tilted the North Pole toward Greenland. Image: Patrick Robert/Corbis

Global warming is changing the location of Earth’s geographic poles, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters.

Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, report that increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet — and to a lesser degree, ice loss in other parts of the globe — helped to shift the North Pole several centimeters east each year since 2005.

“There was a big change,” says lead author Jianli Chen, a geophysicist.

More - Link >>> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-has-shifted-location-north-south-poles&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20130515

Sources: Journal Nature, Scientific American Magazine.

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New Mullaney Book: "Celebrating the Universe!"

By Glenn A. Walsh
Reporting for SpaceWatchtower

A new book, Celebrating the Universe!, introduces the reader to the wonders of the celestial heavens, with a focus on the "soul" of the night sky. The author, James Mullaney, is a lifelong astronomer who has served as Curator of Exhibits and Astronomy at Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science and Staff Astronomer at the Allegheny Observatory. He was also Director of the DuPont Planetarium on the campus of the University of South Carolina, Aiken.

James Mullaney has authored several books and publications including the classic, The Finest Deep-Sky Objects (with Wally McCall, reprint from the Sky and Telescope Magazine,1978), The Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects (with Wil Tirion, 2009), and Star Checking Your Edmund Telescope (1977).

Celebrating the Universe! goes beyond science to explain the personal benefits of communing with the night sky. Perhaps the first book of its kind, this book also goes into little known aspects of stargazing including therapeutic relaxation, celestial meditation, and looking at astronomy from a spiritual perspective.

This travel guide to the stars, available in both paperback and e-book formats, gives the beginning stargazer tips on how to observe the wonders of the night sky. It also explains more about the popular visual objects in the sky including the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors, asteroids, artificial satellites, the many different types of stars, galaxies, and celestial clouds known as nebulae.

More & How to Order Book -
Paperback Book: Link >>> http://www.hayhouse.com/details.php?id=8292
E-Book Format: Link >>> http://www.hayhouse.com/details.php?id=8291

Source: Glenn A. Walsh, Reporting for SpaceWatchtower, a project of Friends of the Zeiss.

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NASA: Strong Solar Flare Earth Impacts Manageable

Impacts of Strong Solar Flares

May 14, 2013 — Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather -- great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun -- some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth, but this is not actually possible.

---

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft captured this image of a solar flare as it erupted from the sun early on Nov 4, 2003. This was the most powerful flare measured with modern methods, classified as an X28. (Credit: ESA and NASA/SOHO)

Solar activity is indeed currently ramping up toward what is known as solar maximum, something that occurs approximately every 11 years. However, this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia so anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm.

This is not to say that space weather can't affect our planet. The explosive heat of a solar flare can't make it all the way to our globe, but electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles certainly can.

More - Link >>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130514083539.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fspace_time+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Space+%26+Time+News%29

Sources: NASA, ScienceDaily.com .

Related Blog Post ---

Video: Biggest Solar Flares of Year (2013 May 14):

Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2013/05/video-biggest-solar-flares-of-year.html 

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Kepler Exoplanet Hunter Spacecraft at Risk

By William Harwood /

CBS News/ May 15, 2013, 5:42 PM

Stalled reaction wheel sidelines Kepler spacecraft

An artist's impression showing the Kepler spacecraft studying a distant sun and an exoplanet crossing in front of the star. Kepler finds planets by monitoring how a star's light dims slightly when a planet passes in front as viewed from Earth. / NASA

Updated 5:42 PM ET

NASA's $600 million Kepler Space Telescope, a leading player in the hunt for Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars, has been sidelined by problems with stabilizing gyroscopic reaction wheels needed to hold the spacecraft and its 95-megapixel camera precisely on target, NASA managers said Wednesday.

One of Kepler's four reaction wheels was shut down last July and problems with a second wheel -- No. 4 -- were discovered Tuesday when engineers found the spacecraft had put itself into a protective "safe mode" after running into a problem of some sort. Subsequent commands to spin up the No. 4 wheel were not successful.

While the space telescope is equipped with rocket thrusters for major maneuvers, at least three reaction wheels are needed to precisely orient the spacecraft and keep it accurately aimed at its target starfield.

More - Link >>> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57584701/stalled-reaction-wheel-sidelines-kepler-spacecraft/

Source: CBS News.

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