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Showing posts with label future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label future. Show all posts

Saturday 27 June 2015

D-Wave promises chip that could SEARCH THE WHOLE UNIVERSE

1k-qubit chip late, still controversial


The 1,000-qubit chip promised by D-Wave last year has landed.

FOR MORE THAN two decades, one of the holy grails of physics has been to build a quantum computer that can process certain types of large-scale, very difficult problems exponentially faster than classical computers. Physicists are making progress toward this goal every day, but nearly every part of a quantum computer still needs re-engineering or redesign to make it all work. 

With companies like Google and Microsoft seriously pursuing the subject of quantum computing, progress towards creating a indisputable quantum computer is likely to speed up. I say an “indisputable” quantum computer because the Canadian company D-Wave already has a quantum computer on the market; but, scientists are torn over whether it truly operates as a quantum computer. 

The 1,000-plus-qubit device was originally planned for the end of 2014.

The doubling of qubits over its previous processor, the company says, gives it a 21000 search space – not only dwarfing the previous 2512 search space, but containing “far more possibilities than there are particles in the observable universe”.

The processors also contain 128,000 Josephson tunnel junctions, the outfit says, which it reckons are “the most complex superconductor integrated circuits ever successfully yielded”.

Just what that means out in the world of computing, we'll have to wait and see. The Register expects the new processor will result in yet more is-it-quantum academic debate in paper and counter-paper (Arxiv should be worth watching) once researchers get their hands on test systems.

At least some aspects of the new chip are familiar, such as discussions about manufacturing yield.

To get the 1,000 qubits – actually 1,152 – the company is fabricating a 2,048 qubit “fabric”.

It then has to run each device through a qualification process to see which qubits are within the performance range, since it says “magnetic offsets and manufacturing variability” disqualify some qubits.

D-Wave says the new processors will land in hardware “soon”. 

Source : The Register

Sunday 29 March 2015

NASA is working with Russia on a new space station

STS-116_spacewalk_1

Astronauts Repairing Space Module

Russia is teaming up with the USA to build ISS 2.0 once the current one's funding runs out in 2024 -- at least according to Russia Today and state news agency TASS. The country's space agency, Roscosmos threatened in February to use the Russian ISS modules as a platform for a new base of its own after 2024, but now it looks like there will be a followup collaboration.

This time around, both parties are looking for participation from other countries, as well as private industry, and are apparently even eyeing a team-up for potential missions to Mars. Russian news outlets report the announcement came during a news conference Saturday following the launch of a year-long mission (video of the launch and subsequent ISS docking is embedded after the break) to the current International Space Station.

NASA Statement -
We are pleased Roscomos wants to continue full use of the International Space Station through 2024 -- a priority of ours -- and expressed interest in continuing international cooperation for human space exploration beyond that. The United States is planning to lead a human mission to Mars in the 2030s, and we have advanced that effort farther than at any point in NASA's history. We welcome international support for this ambitious undertaking. Today we remain focused on full use of our current science laboratory in orbit and research from the exciting one-year mission astronaut Scott Kelly just began, which will help prepare us for longer duration spaceflight.

Chief Komarov, who was there for the US-Russia year-long ISS mission launch, reportedly said: "We have agreed that Roscosmos and NASA will be working together on the program of a future space station." In addition to building a new ISS, sources say the agency's partnership also entail working on a joint Mars mission. In the same event, NASA chief Charles Bolden is quoted saying: "Our area of cooperation will be Mars. We are discussing how best to use the resources, the finance, we are setting time frames and distributing efforts in order to avoid duplication."

So far NASA hasn't announced or confirmed anything through its official channels. We've contacted the agency for comment and will update this post if we hear anything.

Source : engadget.com

Friday 13 February 2015

This woman wants to live and die on Mars—and 200,000 others would gladly take her place

Volker Maiwald, executive officer and habitat engineer of Crew 125 EuroMoonMars B mission, walks among the rock formations in the Utah desert

Ok, it's Utah - but we can dream. (Reuters/Jim Urquhart)

Dina was born in Iraq, lives in the US, and may end her life on Mars.

She’s one of 663 people who are still in the running for a place on the first four-person team that Mars One, a Dutch organization launched in 2011, wants to send to the red planet. Candidates have been whittled down from some 200,000 who applied.

In a video made for the Guardian by Stateless Media, Dina (whose last name isn’t given) and two other hopefuls—one from the UK, one from Mozambique—discuss love, sex, and death on Mars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8na3oQzcwCk

Dina is 29 now, but she’ll be nearing 40 by the time of the Mars mission’s planned launch in 2024. She could be almost a year older than that when they arrive on Mars, which is up to 300 days’ travel away .
Her days may then be numbered. A group of strategic engineering graduates estimated that the first of the travelers would die in 68 days—though the plan is to live there much longer .

Intimacy is not encouraged, because of the potential risks of childbirth—though in the long term the future of colony would rely on it .

No one will return from the mission. This led, last year, to a prohibition on Muslims joining the mission , issued by the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the United Arab Emirates. It judged the mission to be so inevitably fatal that it is essentially suicide.

In the future, the mission plans to meet its costs, to a large extent, via broadcast rights . The first mission will cost $6 billion, according to estimates, though a subsequent mission—a plan is already in the pipeline—would be somewhat cheaper.

Source : qz.com

Friday 23 January 2015

Windows Holographic will let NASA explore what Curiosity sees on Mars

Mars Hololens

Microsoft announced the futuristic at-home augmented reality project Windows Holographic today, and one of the many different uses the company teased was a collaboration with NASA and the Curiosity rover team. Now, NASA has released more information on the software it built for Holographic, a program called OnSight.

By using Microsoft's HoloLens visor, NASA scientists will be able virtually explore the areas of Mars that Curiosity is studying in a fully immersive way. It will also allow them to plan new routes for the rover, examine Curiosity's worksite from a first-person view, and conduct science experiments using the rover's data.

The science teams at NASA that have worked with Curiosity's data before have had no problem learning plenty just by a computer screen, but Holographic and HoloLens will literally offer a new perspective on how to interpret the findings. Scientists will be able to virtually surround themselves with images from the rover and then explore the surface from different angles.

HERE is the video of Microsoft Hololens which makes Holographic Display near to reality :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aThCr0PsyuA

That's a big deal, according to OnSight's project manager, who's quoted in the release. "This tool gives them the ability to explore the rover's surroundings much as an Earth geologist would do field work here on our planet," he says.

We may still be decades away from landing humans on Mars, but it looks like Holographic and OnSight will help bridge the gap until then. The JPL team will start testing OnSight with Curiosity later this year. Deeper integration into future missions may have to wait until the next proposed Mars rover lands on the red planet in 2020.

Source : theverge

Thursday 22 January 2015

Europe Wants To Send Humans To The Dark Side Of The Moon

moon-wallpaper-2

(Click Image to Download)

Should we return to the Moon? While Elon Musk, Mars One, and even NASA have their sights set on the Red planet, many think that the Moon is a better option for space exploration .
The European Space Agency (ESA) is one - they just released a new video stating that the Moon is an important and crucial step in mankind's future.

"In the future, the Moon can become a place where the nations of the world can come together to understand our common origins, to build a common future, and to share a common journey beyond. A place where we can learn to move onwards into the solar system," ESA explains in the video "Destination: Moon" .

ESA envisions future manned missions to the far side of the Moon - also known as the dark side of the Moon because it never faces the Earth (though it isn't shrouded in darkness at all). This alien landscape is a rugged terrain, scarred with billions of years worth of impact craters, including one of the largest impact craters in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin.

back_side_of_the_moon_as16-3021-1

Photograph of the far side of the moon taken by a crew member on Apollo 16.

Scientists think the crater formed around 4 billion years ago. Inside of this 8.1-mile-deep crater, certain parts are shrouded in perpetual, freezing darkness, but at the crater's rim, shown below, are high, mountainous peaks that bathe in almost-constant sunlight. It's here, on these lunar mountains that ESA plans to send robots and eventually humans.

By sending future missions to the Moon we will be able to answer questions like:

  • Is there water elsewhere on the Moon?

  • If so, how much?

  • Where did it come from?

  • And what can it teach us about the origins of water and life on Earth?


If the Moon proves to have an abundant store of water under it surface, then future human generations can use the hydrogen and oxygen atoms for rocket fuel.

To Check out the full video Goto to Business Insider

Monday 10 November 2014

3D-printed moonbase? ESA suggested future moon colony

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moon-base-3d-printed.si

The European Space Agency (ESA) has proven that its project to 3D-print a base on the Moon is possible. In a latest video the agency shows how 3D-printing robots may be used to build the base using lunar material.

The ESA started investigation of the lunar base possibility in 2013, working alongside its industrial and architectural partners. The creation of the reliable semi-spherical structures on the surface of the moon could be fulfilled within the next 40 years, and 90 percent of the materials needed would be derived from the moon itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk9PWUGkz7o

latest details of the new concept, which is, however, still "firmly on the drawing board," were discussed at a conference this week at ESA's technical center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

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Saturday 1 November 2014

Universe may face a darker future

Artist’s impression of exocomets around Beta Pictoris

New research offers a novel insight into the nature of dark matter and dark energy and what the future of our Universe might be.

Researchers in Portsmouth and Rome have found hints that dark matter, the cosmic scaffolding on which our Universe is built, is being slowly erased, swallowed up by dark energy.

The findings appear in the journal Physical Review Letters, published by the American Physical Society. In the journal cosmologists at the Universities of Portsmouth and Rome, argue that the latest astronomical data favours a dark energy that grows as it interacts with dark matter, and this appears to be slowing the growth of structure in the cosmos.

Professor David Wands, Director of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, is one of the research team.

He said: "This study is about the fundamental properties of space-time. On a cosmic scale, this is about our Universe and its fate.

"If the dark energy is growing and dark matter is evaporating we will end up with a big, empty, boring Universe with almost nothing in it.

"Dark matter provides a framework for structures to grow in the Universe. The galaxies we see are built on that scaffolding and what we are seeing here, in these findings, suggests that dark matter is evaporating, slowing that growth of structure."

Cosmology underwent a paradigm shift in 1998 when researchers announced that the rate at which the Universe was expanding was accelerating. The idea of a constant dark energy throughout space-time (the "cosmological constant") became the standard model of cosmology, but now the Portsmouth and Rome researchers believe they have found a better description, including energy transfer between dark energy and dark matter.

Research students Valentina Salvatelli and Najla Said from the University of Rome worked in Portsmouth with Dr Marco Bruni and Professor Wands, and with Professor Alessandro Melchiorri in Rome. They examined data from a number of astronomical surveys, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and used the growth of structure revealed by these surveys to test different models of dark energy.
Professor Wands said: "Valentina and Najla spent several months here over the summer looking at the consequences of the latest observations. Much more data is available now than was available in 1998 and it appears that the standard model is no longer sufficient to describe all of the data. We think we've found a better model of dark energy.

"Since the late 1990s astronomers have been convinced that something is causing the expansion of our Universe to accelerate. The simplest explanation was that empty space – the vacuum – had an energy density that was a cosmological constant. However there is growing evidence that this simple model cannot explain the full range of astronomical data researchers now have access to; in particular the growth of cosmic structure, galaxies and clusters of galaxies, seems to be slower than expected."
Professor Dragan Huterer, of the University of Michigan, has read the research and said scientists need to take notice of the findings.

He said: "The paper does look very interesting. Any time there is a new development in the dark energy sector we need to take notice since so little is understood about it. I would not say, however, that I am surprised at the results, that they come out different than in the simplest model with no interactions. We've known for some months now that there is some problem in all data fitting perfectly to the standard simplest model."