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See the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' painting in 10-gigapixel detail
Microscope manufacturer Hirox has created a panorama of Vermeer’s famous Girl with a Pearl Earring at a mind-goggling 10-gigapixel resolution.
OpenAI's DALL-E app generates images from just a description
OpenAI has reached a new milestone with DALL-E, an agent that can create an image out of nearly any description.
Modeling the bizarre remnants of a supernova
Astronomers from the INAF-Palermo Astronomical Observatory modeled a supernova remnant called IC 443 or the Jellyfish Nebula, showing just how weird they can get.
30 years on, Hubble is still making dazzling discoveries
NASA announced that Hubble has released 30 newly created Hubble images as part of the Caldwell catalog.
Watch OSIRIS-REx take a bite out of asteroid Bennu's surface
OSIRIS-REx became the first mission to gather samples from an asteroid after it successfully collected rocky “regolith” material from the surface of Bennu. Now, NASA has released several videos showing exactly how that six-second process looked, and the best way to describe it is “controlled chaos.”
Designers help a rover navigate the crushing furnace of Venus
Venus is closer to Earth than Mars, but because it’s hellhole that’s unforgiving to rovers, we still don’t know much about its surface. NASA and JPL recently launched a heroX design contest for mechanical sensors that would help its AREE (automaton rover for extreme environments) rover detect and avoid rough terrain. It recently picked the winner, and said it received such an “incredible” response from the community that it added two finalists and 10 honorable mention entries.
Archaeologists map an ancient Roman city without any digging
For the first time, archaeologists have mapped an entire ancient Roman city without any digging by using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology (via Gizmodo). The team of archaeologists from Cambridge and Ghent Universities used the technique to scan Falerii Novi, about 30 miles north of Rome.
AI uses traditional Chinese techniques to create 'mindscapes'
The Chinese painting style called Xieyi literally means “writing ideas,” and marries the freehand techniques of calligraphy, line drawing and shading. It would seem odd, then, to let a machine interpret such a human-oriented artistic style. But that’s exactly what Hong Kong artist Victor Wong has done with a painting robot called A.I. Gemini
Creating the first 3D map of the heart's 'brain'
The heart has its own mini-brain called the intracardiac nervous system (ICN), which fine tunes external autonomic signals and keeps the heart pumping smoothly. The ICN consists of a layer of neurons distributed around the heart that control various cardiac functions.
How NASA's new moon map will guide future manned missions
Now that NASA is planning new missions to the Moon with project Artemis, it needs the most detailed maps of our satellite ever produced. To that end, scientists from NASA, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the Lunar Planetary Institute have created a detailed new map in stunning color.
Apollo 13's long-shot mission to reach Earth
On this date 50 years ago, the jinxed Apollo 13 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The spacecraft’s lunar module never landed on the moon as intended, but considering everything that went wrong, it was arguably the most successful Apollo mission of all.
ASMR becomes a brain tingling art form in a new exhibition
Originally intended to be a live installation prior to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s s now being presented to the public as a “virtual vernissage” that can be enjoyed online. The show delves into the pre- and post-internet history of ASMR.
See every square foot of asteroid Bennu, Earth's little frenemy
Bennu has the distinction of being the subject of the highest resolution mosaic ever made of any planetary body.
AI transforms 'The Great British Bakeoff' into a horror show
Artificial intelligence (AI) can do astonishing things when given specific jobs, but it's terrible at understanding context -- something we've seen before in this series. Thanks to a new experiment inspired by The Great British Bakeoff (GBBO), we can again witness the tragedy of AI stepping outside its lane. Researcher Janelle Shane trained NVIDIA's StyleGan 2 system on images of the show's bakers, pastries and tents, along with "random squirrels," and the results were decidedly not charming and sweet.
Hubble captures the immense 'tsunami' power of quasars
Powered by supermassive black holes that consume huge amounts of galactic material, quasars are some of the most energetic objects in the universe. How energetic? Some of them shine up to 1,000 times brighter than the galaxies that house them. Now, a team of astronomers has used the Hubble Space Telescope to examine several large quasars, and what they found was mind-boggling. Some quasars act like tsunamis, pushing 46-million-MPH winds that blast out hundreds of times the Sun's weight of material per year while creating ripples across entire galaxies.
Tracking down unexpected sources of light pollution
Light pollution is the bane of stargazers, which is why you need to get out of the city to make the best use of your telescope. However, even in the middle of nowhere, your observations might still be disrupted by stray light sources. That prompted a budding astronomer, Alex Altair, to investigate exactly what was producing US light pollution in places with nary a city or town in sight.
NASA maps show the effect of a quarantine on air pollution
"This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event," said NASA air quality researcher Fei Liu. She made that statement after NASA's Earth Observatory released maps showing a dramatic drop in air pollution in the Wuhan region. Industrial output in the region would have already been down significantly due to the Lunar New Year. However, a government quarantine designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 made pollution drop much more significantly and for a longer period.
Google's world is your next wallpaper
Google Earth is arguably the best product Google has ever created because it allows anyone to explore our planet (and beyond) with ease. However, you may not know that Google also has an app called Earth View that contains some of the best curated images you can find on the app. Google recently announced that it has updated this collection with over 1,000 new images (for 2,500 in total) and introduced new search tools to find that perfect wallpaper background.
Capturing the Sun's Texas-sized cells in the highest detail ever
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) started with some controversy, but its first images are already changing the field of solar science. The Maui observatory captured the highest-resolution photos of the sun ever taken, revealing detail down to a mere 18 miles in size. The image above shows turbulent kernel-like cells made up of boiling gases influenced by the Sun's strong magnetic field, each one about the size of Texas.
Scientists tried to recreate a mummy's voice with an electronic larynx
Researchers recently resurrected the "voice" of an ancient priest for the first time since his death over 3,000 years ago. Called Nesyamun, he lived during the time of the pharaoh Rameses XI, who ruled from 1107 to 1078 BC. The team used a combination of scanners, 3D printing and synthesized sound to create the vocal simulation.
