#Network optimisation

[biglisbonnews]

Telekom, MIRA test teleoperated shuttles in Bonn Deutsche Telekom AG and MIRA GmbH have jointly launched a pilot project for teleoperated driving. The project partners are testing the shuttle service with teleoperated operation between various Telekom locations The post Telekom, MIRA test teleoperated shuttles in Bonn appeared first on VanillaPlus - The global voice of Telecoms IT. https://www.vanillaplus.com/2023/08/07/82464-telekom-mira-test-teleoperated-shuttles-in-bonn/

[blood-orange-juice]

Another day in this insane lab.

"N. expressed hope that we can reduce brain dynamics to Ising model." "We will then have to explain why does consciousness arise in the brain but not in ferromagnetics." "How do you know it doesn't?" "True, we can switch to animism, I DON'T MIND."

(note: you can't really do it because of the presence of higher order correlations in the brain, please don't try it. ferromagnetic materials don't show any signs of consciousness either)

[texastelcom]

The Role of SD-WAN in Network Optimization: Boosting Business Connectivity

SD-WAN provides the agility and scalability needed to support evolving network demands. Network optimisation with SD-WAN enables companies to adapt to changing requirements, ensuring consistent connectivity across multiple locations. To read more click on the link.

[cognitivejustice]

Firstly, the researchers removed the phones’ batteries and replaced them with external power sources to reduce the risk of chemical leakage into the environment, a ScienceDaily report explains. 

Then, four phones were connected together, fitted with 3D-printed casings and holders, and turned into a working prototype ready to be reused.

“Innovation often begins not with something new, but with a new way of thinking about the old, re-imagining its role in shaping the future,” says Huber Flores, Associate Professor of Pervasive Computing at the University of Tartu in Estonia.  

The prototype created by researchers was put to use underwater, where it participated in the monitoring of marine life by helping to count different sea species. 

Normally, these kinds of tasks require a scuba diver to record video and bring it to the surface for analysis. The prototype meant the whole process could be done automatically underwater.

And there are many other ways that a phone’s capacity to efficiently process and store data can be put to good use after its WhatsApping days are done.

These mini data centres could also be used at bus stops, for example, to collect real-time data on the number of passengers. This could help to optimise public transportation networks.

Such smartphone repurposing is just a drop in the ocean of issues that natural resource mining, energy-intensive production and e-waste present. Ultimately, we need to challenge this throwaway culture and move to a more circular model. 

[canmom]

The game I've been working on for almost two years is now in open beta if you wanna try it out!!

Boom Boom Hamster Doom is a VR game about commanding teams of hamsters fighting across a completely destructible island. If you want an X-meets-Y description, it's much like Worms, but at tabletop scale. It's toyetic as hell - you lead them around on leashes with your little crab claw, and pull back like a catapult to aim missiles or boxing gloves, throw an airstrike like a paper plane, or fly them around in little jetpacks.

I've worked on pretty much every corner of this game - in particular, shading, animation, UI, gameplay and the procedural generation of the islands. And like, you know me, I want to tell you all about it. I'm writing a whole lot more diving into how just about every aspect of the game was built, from voxel meshing and networked physics to ocean rendering, bot AI, and obscure DOTS optimisation headaches... which will all be appearing right here. I'll keep you updated.

We'll be moving into full early-access soon, but you can already jump in the beta here, and play against other people or bots in the forest and ice biomes. You'll need to have a Quest 2 or Quest 3 headset - but if you have another headset, don't worry, we are planning on a Steam release down the line. I'll keep you posted.

All feedback is extremely welcome! I'm nervous/proud/excited for the game to finally see the light of day.

[argumate]

glancing through another slew of papers on deep learning recently and it's giving me the funny feeling that maybe Yudkowsky was right?? I mean old Yudkowsky-- wait, young Yudkowsky, baby Yudkowsky, back before he realised he didn't know how to implement AI and came up with the necessity for Friendly AI as cope *cough*

back in the day there was vague talk from singularity enthusiasts about how computers would get smarter and that super intelligence would naturally lead to them being super ethical and moral, because the smarter you get the more virtuous you get, right? and that's obviously a complicated claim to make for humans, but there was the sense that as intelligence increases beyond human levels it will converge on meaningful moral enlightenment, which is a nice idea, so that led to impatience to make computers smarter ASAP.

the pessimistic counterpoint to that optimistic idea was to note that ethics and intelligence are in fact unrelated, that supervillains exist, and that AI could appear in the form of a relentless monster that seeks to optimise a goal that may be at odds with human flourishing, like a "paperclip maximiser" that only cares about achieving the greatest possible production of paperclips and will casually destroy humanity if that's what is required to achieve it, which is a terrifying idea, so that led to the urgent belief in the need for "Friendly AI" whose goals would be certifiably aligned with what we want.

obviously that didn't go anywhere because we don't know what we want! and even if we do know what we want we don't know how to specify it, and even if we know how to specify it we don't know how to constrain an algorithm to follow it, and even if we have the algorithm we don't have a secure hardware substrate to run it on, and so on, it's broken all the way down, all is lost etc.

but then some bright sparks invented LLMs and fed them everything humans have ever written until they could accurately imitate it and then constrained their output with reinforcement learning based on human feedback so they didn't imitate psychopaths or trolls and-- it mostly seems to work? they actually do a pretty good job of acting as oracles for human desire, like if you had an infinitely powerful but naive optimiser it could ask ChatGPT "would the humans like this outcome?" and get a pretty reliable answer, or at least ChatGPT can answer this question far better than most humans can (not a fair test as most humans are insane, but still).

even more encouragingly though, there do seem to be early signs that there could be a coherent kernel of human morality that is "simple" in the good sense: that it occupies a large volume of the search space such that if you train a network on enough data you are almost guaranteed to find it and arrive at a general solution, and not do the usual human thing of parroting a few stock answers but fail to generalise those into principles that get rigorously applied to every situation, for example:

the idea that AI would just pick up what we wanted it to do (or what our sufficiently smart alter egos would have wanted) sounded absurdly optimistic in the past, but perhaps that was naive: human cognition is "simple" in some sense, and much of the complexity is there to support um bad stuff; maybe it's really not a stretch to imagine that our phones can be more enlightened than we are, the only question is how badly are we going to react to the machines telling us to do better.

[clouds-of-wings]

Bizarre Google blog announcement: they have a "Shipping Network Design API", and operators of container ships can use it to optimise their trade routes?! This feels like a very old-school Google project, by which I mean a group of engineers put it together as an interesting side project, a very small number of people will come to totally rely on it, and Google will shut it down without warning in a few years' time when those engineers have moved on.

-- from Tom Scott's newsletter

[pposhspice]

My self-mastery, level up plan; the journey of being my desired self always continues. ☆

( to be still updated )

Physical / appearance

Begin lymphatic massages and stay consistent

Fillers, fillers and more fillers to get desired look.

Travel and get new teeth (4,000)

Career

Invest in new course

Invest in professional photoshoot for LinkedIn

Optimise LinkedIn

Social

Start a new hobby, horse riding / tennis.

Join a wellness club (goal is an expensive membership club)

Join a social club

Be confident and have more solo dates.

Network with likeminded individuals.

Finances

Invest into stocks.

Necessities

Learn how to drive + pass

Get my own car

[solarpunkbusiness]

The team said its leaf transpiration generator – which they demonstrated using a lotus leaf – was able to power small electronic devices, and could be used to create plant-powered electricity networks.

“This study not only uncovers the unprecedented hydrovoltaic effect of leaf transpiration but also provides a fresh perspective for advancing green energy technologies,” the team wrote in a paper published in peer reviewed journal Nature Water on September 16.

“Herein, we pioneered the development of a living lotus leaf transpiration generator (LTG) prototype device to demonstrate a viable electricity generation via leaf transpiration.”

Transpiration is the process of water movement through a plant’s roots to tip, and the evaporation of water through its leaves or flowers. The researchers estimated electricity generation through transpiration from plants across the globe could produce 67.5 terawatt-hours of electricity a year.

“Through further research and technical optimisation, leaf transpiration power generation has the potential to become a widely used and commercially viable technology. Its core advantages are sustainability, eco-friendliness and low cost,” said Hu Qichang, first author of the paper and a professor at the university.

[one-of-many-journeys]

Day 42

Snowchant Hunting Grounds

At dawn, I rode west toward Ourea's retreat to meet with Aratak and, hopefully, Cyan.

Both were inside. Cyan on her altar, surrounded by the murals painted by Ourea, and Aratak standing before her, bathed in the blue light. A recording of Ourea was playing, a conversation she shared with Cyan when she first told Ourea of the Daemon’s attack. She spoke of Aratak—his strength in battle, and her faith that if anyone could defeat the Daemon, it was him. Aratak left as soon as he noticed my presence. He must resent me greatly for what happened to Ourea. I’m the reason she went up the mountain.

I wasn’t sure how to speak to Cyan at first. I’d found logs and recordings of her talking to Kenny, but it had been a thousand years since then. She was friendly, and clearly eager to speak to me because of my understanding of Old World technology, and the Focus on my temple. She could share data with me directly. 

I had so many questions, but I began with the basics, the most pressing. What are you? 

What I had been calling ‘thinking machines’, she called artificial intelligence. They were common in the Old World. The Old Ones had the power to just…create these beings, fully conscious and aware, but with a machine's speed of thought and the ability to communicate with and control them. Just as the data I found told me, Cyan was created to oversee project Firebreak, and the level of intelligence required to manage the project autonomously couldn’t be achieved without introducing emotional responses as a byproduct. I suppose the two can’t be separated; one begets the other.

Cyan called her own emotional capacities ‘limited’, but they didn’t seem limited to me. She expressed grief over Ourea’s sacrifice, and I could tell it bothered her that she was never able to communicate on an equal level with Ourea, who saw her always as a spirit before a friend. She said that her colleagues, like Anita and Kenny, had to keep the true extent of her intelligence a secret. It was forbidden by…every tribe, it seems. All corporations. To have the ability to create life from light and words, and impose limits on it, never allow it to reach its full potential…it seems counterintuitive. Cruel, more importantly. Cyan didn’t seem to resent this fact, but didn’t give much in way of an explanation either—just said that both machines and human societies require laws to function effectively. I suppose that’s true, but I’ve come across my fair share of laws that are just as cruel. 

Cyan told me more about Firebreak, mostly confirming and expanding on the information I’d already picked up through datapoints. Despite the destruction of its facilities, Cyan had optimised the caldera’s stabilisation over the centuries to the point that an eruption wasn’t probable for over three-thousand years. At a guess, I’d say she surpassed her creators’ expectations. 

Most importantly of all, she told me about the Daemon. It’s name is Hephaestus, and it’s another artificial intelligence like Cyan, but far more advanced, according to her. By her earlier summation, advancement means intelligence, and intelligence means emotion. More complex emotions, I guess—harder to predict, and therefore harder to control. Good thing Cyan is so nice then. 

If the Old Ones used codes to control thinking machines the same way Faro controlled his war machines, and that control was lost somehow, I can only imagine the damage they could do, especially in the age of metal, where machines were used to do everything, were even hooked into people’s heads…So maybe someone lost control of Hephaestus, and Hades too. Remnants of the Old Ones’ society? 

The people behind the door?

Hephaestus tricked Cyan into making contact with it. She was desperate to communicate with a more technologically advanced people than the Banuk, who could only help and understand her so much. Then it…corrupted her. Took control of her entire network and made her mind into just another strand of its web. She caught glimpses of its thoughts, its objectives, but they remained elusive. Hephaestus wants to create deadly, aggressive machines like its Fireclaws to kill human hunters, but not wipe them out entirely. Cyan was very specific about that. Does it want its machines to rule over humans? 

Destroying Firebreak didn’t destroy Hephaestus. Its true body is somewhere else, maybe not even in one place at all, according to Cyan. It’s spread out across vast distances, dwelling in scattered pieces across many Cauldrons, attempting to take control. How long has it been trying to influence the creation of machines? It attacked Cyan five years ago, but she said it had already infected other Cauldrons by then. If I had to guess, it all started at least ten or fifteen years ago, whenever the Derangement began. 

If I’m right…If I can find it, and kill it, that would be the greatest act of healing imparted on the people of all lands. Once I stop the Eclipse and Hades, Hephaestus will be my next target. If it doesn’t make itself known to me first, that is. Back in the Cauldron core, it sounded furious. 

It turns out that Faro was the one who started Firebreak, giving it the resources it needed to succeed. Back then, he was known as ‘the man who saved the world’. Never has a man so thoroughly spurned his title, I can guarantee. Elisabet Sobeck must have still been part of Faro’s corporation then. Cyan never met Elisabet, though she told me that her work had greatly inspired Cyan’s creator, Anita. Cyan didn’t know anything about Zero Dawn either; she was put into ‘hibernation mode’ before Faro’s swarm came, and woke up centuries later to an empty world, spent the centuries since toiling away, alone. Never knowing what happened…and whether anyone was still out there to enjoy the world she was preserving. I think Ourea was more of a revelation to Cyan than the other way around. 

Cyan ended our conversation with a question that I had no idea how to answer. Aratak was planning to bring other Banuk up the Shaman’s path to see her—it was framed as a holy pilgrimage in that alone, here on the snow peak at the end of their sacred caves. Cyan didn’t know how to deal with their fervor. She felt she was deceiving them, but knew they lacked the technical aptitude to comprehend the truth. As if I haven’t been struggling with the same damn thing.

I deflected the question. You have to judge these situations as they come, person to person, I told her. As long as the truth comes out eventually, using whatever words needed to frame such lofty concepts. Truthfully, I still don’t understand half of what I read in the datapoints I find, and have to draw connections to concepts I’ve experienced, whether they're correct or not. It’s so frustrating. It seems like Cyan can help with that, though. Even though she was isolated, hidden from corporate laws, with only her colleagues for company, she knows far more than I. I’ll make sure to come back and visit her as I find more questions on my journey.

Aratak stood watching the white world below the peak, and I had to ask him: did he resent me? He denied it; if I hadn’t come, he would have led his Werak to their deaths on Thunders Drum, the Daemon would have spread its infection further, killing more hunters, and Ourea would have lost the spirit forever. He didn’t understand Ourea’s determination until he spoke to Cyan himself. Now he knew why she had been willing to sacrifice everything.

I passed the Cheiftain’s mantle back to him. I only borrowed it anyway, and we never did complete our challenge for the title. 

Aratak said I was practically Banuk. To him, that’s the highest honour he can bestow. There’s one more task for me here in the Cut. Five completed Fireclaws escaped before the makeshift Cauldron was destroyed. Now they’re roaming the wilds, wreaking havoc in their wakes. I have some hunting to do. 

As I was leaving the facility, Sylens finally deigned to speak. I’m sure he found the whole ordeal intriguing, as I fought for my life day after day. He wouldn’t tell me I was right to make my northern detour straight on, but I knew what he meant. Good intuition, Aloy, those Banuk ‘mysticisms’ were relevant to my elusive interests after all.

He had one interesting fact to offer: the names ‘Hades’ and ‘Hephaestus’ both came from the same language, one that was ancient even in the time of the Old Ones. I wonder, did they choose those names for themselves based on legend, perverting scripture just as Hades does now with his Shadow Carja underlings, or did the Old Ones name them thus? Whatever the truth, it seems that Hades and Hephaestus are some form of kin. 

Heading down the mountain, I spotted one of the escaped Fireclaws prowling beside a Ravager. An uninfected Ravager. I overrode it and it turned its cannon on the Fireclaw, but the beast made short work of my ally, and soon I was facing it alone. It took a swipe at me, but at least the snow was there to soothe my burns. I used the same strategy as I had in the Cauldron: fire unit, power cell detonations, blaze sack bursts, frost bombs, and more hardpoints to land the final blows. 

I climbed a mountainside nearby to harvest more Bluegleam—I had a Banuk-made war bow in mind—then made my way down to the foot of the Shaman’s path to purchase it.

Deep Din was close by—hard to miss the music. I snuck past the Snapmaws patrolling the entrance and slipped down to meet Laulai. I even joined in for a few stretches of song.

Maybe an ill-advised place to rest on account of the noise, but even Laulai settled down eventually. The sound of the Snapmaws pacing above was ominous, though. 

[violant-apologia]

i looove thinking about the neon future, so here's a mechanic concept for Fallen Berlin!

The Network Deck

A second deck! While your main deck is the same as in FL and represents things you're physically interacting with/present for, in FB you would be able to draw cards from a secondary deck that represents things happening on the Network. You would still have one hand, just two ways of drawing cards (and also the added option to draw one at a time, if you want). Instead of getting one opportunity card every ten minutes, you get one of each every twenty (or maybe fifteen?)

(a silly mockup:)

Your Network deck (or netdeck for short) is the same in all areas, compared to the changing nature of the main deck (which would be emphasized more to draw a comparison). It's also significantly more customisable/optimisable: you can control what apps you have, which is responsible for almost all of the cards in your netdeck. Similar to lab workers, your deck will start getting clogged up with bad cards if you don't have enough apps: things like lack of stuff do do with your phone:

You find yourself on autopilot, stuck in a loop of closing an app and then immediately reopening it. Nightmares is increasing...

Imagine apps like Squeaker (spices' personal twitter clone, arguments and drama galore), the Library (pages' wikipedia-alike, where a war for the city's knowledge is waged), smaller message boards (sold by mr bricks), geocache-esque stuff in a maps app, experimental apps which interact with parabola, unofficial "dark web" crime-related app, the like. (maybe even phone games lol)

Restricted card areas, like how pickpocketing and parties are now, would probably have to limit your phone use for practicality reasons – though maybe they could build what apps you have into some cards too.

if you have any cool neon future app ideas, shoot them my way and i might mock some of them up as cards!

[canmom]

interesting video about why scaling up neural nets doesn't just overfit and memorise more, contrary to classical machine learning theory.

the claim, termed the 'lottery ticket hypothesis', infers from the ability to 'prune' most of the weights from a large network without completely destroying its inference ability that it is effectively simultaneously optimising loads of small subnetworks and some of them will happen to be initialised in the right part of the solution space to find a global rather than local minimum when they do gradient descent, that these types of solutions are found quicker than memorisation would be, and most of the other weights straight up do nothing. this also presumably goes some way to explaining why quantisation works.

presumably it's then possible that with a more complex composite task like predicting all of language ever, a model could learn multiple 'subnetworks' that are optimal solutions for different parts of the problem space and a means to select into them. the conclusion at the end, where he speculates that the kolmogorov-simplest model for language would be to fully simulate a brain, feels like a bit of a reach but the rest of the video is interesting. anyway it seems like if i dig into pruning a little more, it leads to a bunch of other papers since the original 2018 one, for example, so it seems to be an area of active research.

hopefully further reason to think that high performing model sizes might come down and be more RAM-friendly, although it won't do much to help with training cost.

[mifiada]

MifiadaHome Starting a Brand | AI in Brand Marketing: Can AI Pave the Path to Social Media Millions? Episode 1

A current MSc Marketing student, I often find myself researching into the world of Digital Marketing more specifically overnight 'virilisation' and furthermore the 'social media millions' that so many millennials dream of. With the glamorous lives of social media influences further demonstrating how fame and fortune can be attained by generating a large audience through social media virilisation, the question arises: is it attainable for the average millennial like you or me, who is not famous, nor born of privilege, but armed with a mobile phone and big dreams?

The Allure of Virality: A Millennials Obsession?

Debunking the myth behind AI, particularly tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini, being the holy grail to attaining overnight success. With AI gurus filling our #fyp with heavy promises of achieving financial freedom and escaping from the controversial 9-to-5, every millennial's dream of monetising their passion. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that viral moments are fleeting, unpredictable, and even when attained, to reach social media stardom and replicate said moment, this often becomes impossible. Initially, understanding being virality is more to do with luck and an intangible 'it' factor than any replicable strategy.

AI as the Navigator in the Viral Storm?

My perspective on AI begins to shift with the discovery of a specific software called Kling AI. The pursuit of 'virality', as I now understand it, isn't just about random chance; it's about optimising efforts for maximum shareability and resonance.

My previous reflection within the topic focused on AI's ability to understand audiences, and craft compelling narratives, and identify your inner influencer abilities. Now, I see how these capabilities directly feed into the virilisation equation. If Tuten & Solomon (2015) emphasised engagement and relationship, then 'Kling AI' takes that a step further by identifying the optimal points of engagement that trigger sharing. Imagine an AI that doesn't just tell you what your audience likes, but what they are most likely to share with their network. This isn't about creating a viral hit from scratch, but about increasing the probability of viral spread for well-crafted content.

Storytelling for Shareability: The AI Edge?

The power of a narrative, as Van Laer et al. (2014) articulated, lies in its ability to transport an audience. To go viral, you need to be more than just author; but rather transcend your audiences mind to a world which was previously unknown, a subtle but crucial distinction.

With cutting edge animation 'Kling AI's' ability to tell a story is unmatched. It also enables past performance analysis to better develop storylines, this is powerful for identifying stories that better resonates with the audience, which would propel people to share them this could be:

Addictive Content:

-Emotional hook

-Surprising twist

-Universal truth

A cheat code to knowing what design, colour scheme, theme has previous resulted in higher viewer count, moves past the guessing game or what others might deem luck but rather the ability to make data driven creative decisions.

The Conclusion: How do you amplify Organic Reach?

Rosenbaum's (2011) "Curation Nation" this concept demonstrates the active role users play in content creation. The need for community is seen in other words as an engine of virality. Through the play of consistency, this doesn't leave process of becoming viral to chance but rather through sawing seed via more than one social platform, it allows for the opportunity of it flourishes sparking a chair reaction for the creator to then replicate said moment.

Reference List:

Rosenbaum, S. (2011) Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R. (2015) Social Media Marketing. 2nd edn. London: Sage Publications.

Van Laer, T., De Ruyter, K., Visconti, L.M. and Wetzels, M. (2014) ‘The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers’ Narrative Transportation’, Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5), pp. 797–817. https://doi.org/10.1086/673383

[swastimeraki]

Social Media for Generation Z: Advantages and Disadvantage

Swastika Gargi Chakraborty, Grade 11, Daffodil International School (EM).

Social media platforms have become essential to the Gen Z lifestyle, influencing their everyday interactions, opinions, and aspirations. Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter are more prevalent among Gen Z, enhancing their connectivity. Nonetheless, although social media provides several advantages, it also presents considerable disadvantages. Let us examine the advantages and disadvantages of social media for Generation Z.

The Positive Aspects of Social Media:

Connectivity and Communication: Social media enables Generation Z to maintain connections with friends and family, regardless of geographical distance. It cultivates connections and engenders a sense of belonging, particularly for individuals who may experience isolation in their immediate environment.

Educational Opportunities: Platforms such as YouTube and LinkedIn offer Generation Z access to complimentary educational resources, online courses, and career guidance. A multitude of students utilise social media to augment their education, share knowledge, and remain apprised of worldwide trends.

Career and Business Advancement: Social media functions as a catalyst for emerging entrepreneurs and freelancers. A significant number of Gen-Z individuals have transformed their interests into professions by leveraging networks such as Instagram and TikTok for branding and marketing purposes. The emergence of influencers underscores how an online presence may result in monetary prosperity.

Awareness and Social Movements: Activism has evolved on social media, with Generation Z actively participating in social and political matters. Hashtag movements and viral campaigns facilitate the dissemination of knowledge regarding crucial issues such as climate change, mental health, and equality.

The Adverse Aspects of Social Media:

Mental Health Concerns: Prolonged social media usage has been associated with anxiety, depression, and diminished self-esteem. The compulsion to uphold a 'ideal' online identity results in impractical comparisons and self-doubt.

Cyberbullying and Harassment: In contrast to in-person encounters, social media facilitates anonymity, potentially resulting in cyberbullying. A significant number of young people endure online harassment, adversely affecting their mental health.

The compulsive nature of incessantly scrolling through social media feeds can lead to addiction, adversely impacting productivity and academic achievement. Numerous Gen-Z students find it challenging to sustain concentration owing to incessant notifications and the urge to check their phones.

The dissemination of misinformation constitutes a significant problem on social media platforms. A multitude of youthful users encounter deceptive content, conspiracy theories, and partial perspectives, which can distort their worldview.

Final Assessment:

Social media is a potent instrument that has transformed the manner in which Generation Z engages with the world. Although technology provides substantial advantages for connectivity, education, and professional advancement, it also presents considerable threats to mental health, productivity, and the veracity of information. The essential aspect of optimising social media usage is equilibrium—employing it judiciously while acknowledging its adverse effects. If Gen Z can leverage its strengths while addressing its weaknesses, social media can serve as a constructive influence in fostering a brighter future.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

ESA’s new asteroid hunter opens its eye to the sky

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) newest planetary defender has opened its ‘eye’ to the cosmos for the first time. The Flyeye telescope’s ‘first light’ marks the beginning of a new chapter in how we scan the skies for new near-Earth asteroids and comets.

Inspired by an insect’s compound eye, ESA and OHB Italia designed Flyeye to capture a region of the sky more than 200 times as large as the full Moon in a single exposure – much larger than a conventional telescope.

It will use this wide field of view to automatically survey the sky each night independent from  human operation and identify new asteroids that could pose a hazard to Earth.

“In the future, a network of up to four Flyeye telescopes spread across the northern and southern hemispheres will work together to further improve the speed and completeness these automatic sky surveys and to reduce the dependence on good weather at any individual site,” says Ernesto Doelling, Flyeye Project Manager.

“The earlier we spot potentially hazardous asteroids, the more time we have to assess them and, if necessary, prepare a response,” says Richard Moissl, Head of ESA’s Planetary Defence Office. “ESA’s Flyeye telescopes will be an early-warning system, and its discoveries will be shared with the global planetary defence community.”

ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC) will verify any potential new asteroid detections made by the Flyeye telescopes and submit the findings to the Minor Planet Center, Earth’s hub for asteroid observational data. Astronomers will then carry out follow-up observations to further assess the hazard that the object may pose to our planet.

“The unique optical design of the Flyeye telescope is optimised for conducting large sky surveys while maintaining high image quality throughout the wide field of view,” says Roberto Aceti, Managing Director at OHB Italia.

“The telescope is equipped with a one metre primary mirror, which efficiently captures incoming light. This light is then divided into 16 separate channels, each equipped with a camera capable of detecting very faint objects. This enables simultaneous high-sensitivity observations over a large region of the sky.”

During operations, Flyeye’s observation schedule will be optimised to consider factors such as Moon brightness and the work of other survey telescopes such as the NASA-funded ATLAS telescopes, the Zwicky Transient Facility and the upcoming Vera Rubin Telescope.