Astronomy is constantly discovering never-befor observed phenomenon. The idea that you can simulate realistic images of anything requires you to have sufficient knowledge of reality, and astronomy keeps showing us that we don’t have that.
The only way I can see this being helpful is to train algorithms for what is already known and can be safely filtered out, making it easier to detect new observations
I still think they should build out a lunar crater radio telescope out there on the dark side of the moon. The radio silence and scale would be impossible to get any other way.
That’s an interesting thought I hadn’t considered. The Webb is about as quiet as we’re going to get anywhere near our orbit, but a lunar compound could very easily be much larger, and would be a great deal easier to service/upgrade.
So ground based observatories have long benefited from the development of adaptive optics. That's basically where you have a small mirror that is synced to the movements of the upper atmosphere and essentially cancels out the shimmer that makes stars twinkle to the naked eye, bringing them into a sharp focus more like what you would get from a space telescope. But the tech can only achieve this feat over narrow patches sky, meaning wide field observatories were left out. I think that's what they're talking about here? You can't get much more wide field than Vera Rubin.
I believe this is a new deconvolution image stacking algorithm that can easily be run in hardware. It should work with any observatory. The math is far enough above my head that I can’t be sure though.
It would be cool if this makes it into software that people could use at home. I would love to see what amateur astrophotographers could to with it.
Hopefully, this new algorithm is not overly taxing. The amount of processing they’ll have to do to keep up with Rubin must be staggering. It’s got what, a 3.2 Gpixel camera mapping the entire night sky every few days. And then all that data has to be processed across the timeline of past observations. I wouldn’t be surprised if the computational demands are what kept it from becoming a reality until now.
What kind of alien god is looking on from deep space in the upper right? I see two eyes, a mouth, and the dark shading varies just enough to look vaguely like a head.
I’m starting to think maybe I’ve had a few too many arguments intense discussions with alien conspiracy theorists…
Is thus such a bad thing, as humans explore and spend more time living / working in space, we are going to need a way to get people to / from space, but also supplies, if Boeing can be part of the supply solution.
Sure, they can be a part of the supply solution. But these capsules were originally designed for transport of astronauts, and the supply side has much more competition.
Good point, what was the main issue with the capsule? or was it with the rocket that took this in to space?
There is also perhaps going to be a need to transport items to from facilities in space, if we build a new ISS and also build one orbiting the Moon, then items / people need moving around.
I have often thought we need like they have on Star trek, shuttles or runabouts (DS9).
There’s quite a lot of issues, but the main issue is with the thrusters not firing properly, which could cause astronauts to get stranded in space. It could also prevent getting the heat shield in the proper position for re-entry, both are dangerous, obviously.
A human rated spacecraft is orders of magnitude more complex and expensive than a mere cargo carrier. Developing a human rated capsule and then only using it for cargo would be ridiculously wasteful.
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