Paris (AFP) July 13, 2023
Google launched its AI chatbot Bard in the European Union, Brazil and a dozen other countries on Thursday and unveiled new features as it expands access to its answer to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT. The US tech giant unveiled Bard in February but delayed its release in the European Union as the bloc plans to regulate artificial intelligence amid concerns about risks associated with the rapidly

Tucson AZ (SPX) Jul 13, 2023
Scientists are getting a closer look of potential organic signatures in Martian rocks and may have found evidence of key building blocks of life preserved within two potentially habitable paleo-depositional settings in Mars' Jezero crater. These organics, a class of carbon-based molecules, could have been left by ancient microbial life - though there are many geological sources of organics on Ma

Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Jul 13, 2023
On the Moon, there are raw materials that humanity could one day mine and use. Various space agencies, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), are already planning missions to better explore Earth's satellite and find minerals. This calls for appropriate exploration vehicles. Swiss researchers led by ETH Zurich are now pursuing the idea of sending not just one solitary rover on an exploration t

Austin TX (SPX) Jul 13, 2023
Scientists at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) have developed a radar technique that lets them image hidden features within the upper few feet of ice sheets. The researchers behind the technique said that it can be used to investigate melting glaciers on Earth as well as detect potentially habitable environments on Jupiter's moon Europa. The near-surface layers of ic

Wuhan (XNA) Jul 13, 2023
China plans to land its taikonauts on the moon before 2030 to carry out scientific exploration, according to a preliminary plan released by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Wednesday. The plan is to launch two carrier rockets to send a lunar lander and a manned spacecraft to a lunar orbit, respectively. The craft and lunar lander will rendezvous and dock with each other, and then ta

Wuhan (XNA) Jul 13, 2023
The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) has announced the official start to the construction of an ultra-low orbit satellite constellation. The CASIC made the announcement at the opening of the 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum, which kicked off on Wednesday in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. The CASIC said the first satellite of

Mountain View CA (SPX) Jul 13, 2023
Muon Space has been awarded an option to their contract with Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLMC)'s Weather Systems Branch and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to collect ionospheric data on their MuSat-2 satellite mission. The performance period for this contract is two years extending through September 2024. This is an optional expansion in scope to the original contract award

Washington (AFP) July 12, 2023
Elon Musk on Wednesday launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, as he seeks to compete with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT - a program he accuses of being politically biased and irresponsible. The xAI website said the Tesla tycoon would run the company separately from his other companies but that the technology developed would benefit those businesses, including Twitter.

Santa Maria Madalena, Brazil (AFP) July 12, 2023
Awestruck by the oranges and blues of the Jewel Box star cluster, part of the Southern Cross constellation, Pedro Froes manages to get out a few words: "It's incredible." Froes is viewing the stars from a telescope in Desengano State Park, a rural patch of Brazil largely spared from light pollution, located some 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro. Desengano is Latin Ameri

Washington (AFP) July 12, 2023
Jets of red gas bursting into the cosmos, and a glowing cave of dust: NASA marked a year of discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope Wednesday with a spectacular new image of Sun-like stars being born. The picture is of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the nearest stellar nursery to Earth, whose proximity at 390 light-years allows for a crisp close-up by the most powerful orbital observato