Its a nice bit of tech. 73M in construction costs. The focal plane instrumentation alone weighs 10 tonnes. It includes 5,000 small computer controlled fiber positioners. The entire focal plane can be reconfigured for the next exposure in less than two minutes while the telescope slews to the next field. The DESI instrument is capable of taking 5,000 simultaneous spectra of different Galaxies
The saga started two years ago at Caltech’s Zwicky Transient Facility located at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. There, astronomers from Harvard University, the Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics, and MIT tasked a newly designed machine learning algorithm to scan the night skies for odd explosions in real time. Operators hoped that quickly flagging possible targets in this way could offer vital extra time for ground and space telescope array observations around the world. In July 2023, the AI system sighted one such event, which astronomers classified SN 2023zkd.
Comparative scanning of the night skies is a good use for AI.
There’s lots of good uses for AI, but people seem to equate AI with LLMs these days so I feel the need to point out that this is not a good use case for LLMs
Idk about you but if it levels 1287 km² of forest, I don’t think that would exactly be good news for a populated area. On the upper range, it could be equivalent to a 40 megatonne bomb.
Yeah. I’m half-drunk but the first thing that I thought was, “I could use some gyros. Preferably with a buttload of tzatziki”. (The video is about gyroscopes though. Also cool. But not edible.)
Except of course, when it’s cloudy. The only eclipse that ever happened where I lived in my lifetime was a total disappointment because you couldn’t see anything.
A half dozen years ago, or thereabouts, I entered the Canadian version of this competition, just to see how I’d fare, and to look at the process. Made it through the first couple levels of screening (from 3200 applicants, I was still in the hunt at 300 remaining) but then got filtered.
Some interesting bullet points if you’re thinking of applying, assuming the NASA questions are similar to the CSA ones:
(1) ham radio, morse code, or other amateur radio operator experience is an asset.
(2) Anything aviation or amateur rocketry is an asset, but in particular a pilot’s license. Anything aviation adjacent is still useful.
(3) Russian language (this might be changing in the current political environment)
(4) Experience in an “operational environment” – I suspect this is military jargon, but if you’d don’t field research as a scientist out of wilderness camps, or anything like that where you’re in a small group for work/adventure might apply here.
(5) Medical degrees, or advanced science degrees.
(6) Physical fitness and perfect vision
When I applied, my Russian sucked, my aviation experience was tangential (but copious), and I was a grad school dropout (from a planetary science program), so I didn’t float to the top. But it was enough to make it through the first layers.
There person who ended up winning was a medical-degree air force pilot. Hard to compete haha.
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