Boom for the Mind: New AI capabilities and the limits of space exploration

Russian scientists have created an endoscope that better detects internal human pathologies, and design engineers have developed an engine project that will help nanosatellites work as part of a swarm and reach the orbits of the Moon. In addition, chemists have obtained material for compact and safe hydrogen engines. At the same time, in China, researchers announced the beginning of exploration of the Earth-moon region of space — space within a radius of 2 million km from Earth, and German experts reported how artificial intelligence has bypassed natural intelligence in the development of gravity detectors. This is stated in a selection of the most interesting scientific news prepared by Izvestia.

The new defective material will allow more hydrogen to be stored.

Researchers from NUST MISIS have synthesized a material that has suitable properties for storing hydrogen. It is a substance based on boron nitride, in the structure of which defects have been created to accommodate the gas. The material was named "white graphite" for its properties similar to this mineral.

— Previously, it was believed that the greater the hydrogen sorption, the greater the specific surface area of the material. We found out that there is another parameter that affects gas absorption. These are atomic vacancies, that is, structural defects. To create them, we synthesized boron nitride nanoparticles along with carbon and oxygen atoms, and then removed some of these atoms from the structure by processing in hydrogen at high temperature," said Andrey Matveev, senior researcher at the NUST MISIS Inorganic Nanomaterials Research Center.

Photo: Misis

Boron nitride can withstand up to 1000 ° C, is resistant to aggressive media, is nonflammable and does not interact with hydrogen. At the same time, it absorbs three times more gas than modern metal-organic frameworks, and at the same time easily releases it. These properties will make it possible, based on the development, to create compact, efficient and safe hydrogen engines and batteries for electronics, drones and other devices that require small-sized energy sources.

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Engines for delivering nanosatellites to the Moon

Design engineers from the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI and the STAR company have prepared a preliminary design for an electric colloidal rocket engine of the electrospray type. It is designed for small devices of the "nanosatellites" class, including the "cubesats" format.

The development is a power plant in which ionic liquids are used as a working fluid. In it, under the influence of a strong electric current, charged particles gain acceleration, escape and form a jet stream.

— Plasma acceleration by electricity is the most effective way to accelerate to high speeds. Unlike traditional engines, where the flow rate of the jet stream is limited by the energy of the chemical reaction, there is no such ceiling for the plasma flow. As a result, the power plants are capable of accelerating vehicles to 10-20 km/s or more," said Igor Egorov, Chief Designer of STAR, senior lecturer.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Andrey Erstrem

According to him, the proposed engines are suitable for breeding nanosatellites in orbits and their precise positioning in space, which is important for working as part of a swarm. Calculations also show that a cubesat of 12 units with an ionic liquid propulsion system can fly from geostationary Earth orbit (at an altitude of 36,000 km) to lunar orbit. This will reduce the cost of satellite development.

Russia has created the first domestic endoscope

Russian specialists, with the participation of St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" named after V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin), have developed the first domestic endoscope, a device that helps to study internal organs without surgical intervention.

Photo: courtesy of the LETI Center for Scientific Communications

The authors of the project combined a video module with an LED as a light source, a processor and proprietary software in the device, which increases the information content of the image and allows you to implement a number of service functions. This includes maintaining a patient database. The advantage of the development is chromoendoscopic equipment, which, with the help of contrast dyes, makes it possible to more accurately diagnose gastrointestinal diseases.

— All top foreign manufacturers have virtual chromoendoscopy technologies, but this is classified information. We have developed our own innovation, which in some aspects even surpasses existing solutions, as it includes four image processing modes. This includes a mode that provides a combination of optimal color contrast while maintaining the natural color gamut," explained Natalia Obukhova, Dean of the Faculty of Radio Engineering and Telecommunications (FRT), Head of the Department of Television and Video Technology (TV) at St. Petersburg State Technical University LETI.

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AI has surpassed the limits of understanding the human mind

The Urania artificial intelligence, created at the Max Planck Institute for Light Science (Germany), has prepared projects for new gravitational wave detectors on the instructions of scientists. According to experts, his proposed designs surpassed the capabilities of existing human-developed concepts.

According to a statement released by the institute's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Urania has created new strategies. At the same time, AI has raised new questions about space for astrophysicists.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Anna Selina

On the one hand, many Urania concepts revealed well-known processes in the analysis, some AI developments were very unconventional and offered new applications that scientists still do not fully understand and which could potentially help shape the next generation of detectors, the report says.

— We live in an era when machines can find new superhuman solutions in science, and the task of people is to understand what the machine has done. This will certainly become an important part of the future of science," said project leader Mario Krenn.

He noted that in the process of work, a collection of 50 of the most effective models proposed by AI was assembled. Scientists have unveiled the developments in order to develop further research together with the scientific community.

Chinese scientists in 1 thousand once we expanded the sphere of space expansion

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has announced the beginning of exploration of the Earth-moon region of space, which extends to a distance of up to 2 million km from Earth. The reason for the approval was the mission of three satellites, one of which was placed in the vicinity of the Moon (DRO-A), the second in Earth—Moon maneuvering orbits (DRA-B), and the third in Earth's sun-synchronous orbit (DRA-L).

These devices, spaced in space for more than 1 million km, demonstrated reliable interaction with each other in the field, stable radio communication, as well as effective joint research activities.

Photo: Global Look Press/Rickey Arnold

These achievements, according to scientists, open a new stage in the history of the earth's civilization. Namely, the transition from the exploration of near—Earth orbits (up to 2 thousand km from the planet), to expansion into the Earth-moon region of space. Thus, researchers have expanded the scope of humanity's presence in space a thousand times.

As the authors of the report noted, the Earth-moon region of space is of strategic importance for the development of lunar resources, long-term human habitation outside the Earth, interplanetary activity and sustainable development of the Solar system.