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O IBM event, held this Tuesday (08), promoted a chat with experts, who talked about technology, astronomy, how these two areas are related and were impacted by the digital transformation. This chat was held virtually, in a videoconference, due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus. 2l1vb
To compose the — let's say — table of the event, IBM invited:
- Fabricio Lira: IBM Data and Artificial Intelligence leader;
- Luciana Oliveira: meteorologist at IBM Latin America's The Weather Company;
- Richard Ogando: astrophysicist at the National Observatory;
- Sergio Sacani: PhD in geosciences, astronomy expert and owner of the Space Today YouTube channel.
“Since the beginning of humanity, we have been used to looking to the sky for answers to some things.”
Fabricio Lira, Data and Artificial Intelligence Leader at IBM
The conversation between the specialists ranged from these more philosophical considerations to the many applications of artificial intelligence technologies in astronomy, as well as the promises of quantum computing for the observation of the stars.
The chat also explored the history of technological evolution and its impacts on astronomy, as well as the challenges facing the field today. Another point explored was the not-so-obvious relationship between astronomy and meteorology.
Below you can see a summary of what happened and the main points of what was discussed in the IBM event.
IBM event: astronomy and technology 311s4s
Who opened the event's chat was the youtuber Sérgio Sacani, from the Space Today. He pointed out that in the past, in the universe of astronomy, the problem was to acquire the data necessary to carry out and catalog the observations. Today, the “problem” is just the opposite: the large amount of data that can be collected.
According to Sacani, this leads to two other problems: where to store and how to analyze this huge amount of data. To give you an idea, currently astronomers can, in one scan, study and analyze thousands of galaxies at the same time. This leads to a type of work called data mining, that is, a data mining in search of useful and relevant information.
To deal with all this, the geoscience doctor explained, at the IBM event, that this data needs to be well stored and that access to it needs to occur quickly. To explore them, international teams are set up, which apply data science techniques (data science, in English), machine learning (machine learning algorithm ) and artificial intelligence in general, explained Sacani.
“From all this, important discoveries in astronomy are made.”
Sérgio Sacani, PhD in geosciences, astronomy expert and owner of the Space Today YouTube channel
Who was responsible for unraveling this technological topic a little more was IBM's data and AI leader, Fabrício Lira. He spoke about IBM's solutions for data storage, cloud computing and data processing through artificial intelligence. All this, of course, applied to the context of astronomy.
To exemplify the volume of data that telescopes can currently generate, Lira cited the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope). This will be an 8,4 meter telescope, equipped with a 2 gigapixels and capable of mapping the entire visible sky. The plan is to build it in northern Chile and is expected to be operational in 2022. If it delivers everything it promises, the IBM leader said it would produce 200 petabytes of data in a year of daily observations. This, according to him, would 42 million DVDs, to give you an idea.
Lira pointed out that the evolution of artificial intelligence, as a whole, has opened up frontiers for “technological science”, as he said at the IBM event. that opened virtually endless possibilities, according to Fabricio.
“These elements open up possibilities for evolution, expansion and very large collaboration. The potential for data enrichment and assertiveness is greatly expanded.”
Fabricio Lira, Data and Artificial Intelligence Leader at IBM
He also explained that, at first, the challenge was to collect the data needed for astronomical studies. Today, the “new step” is the information organization. With the amount of data that can be generated, Lira said that it would be humanly impossible to organize it all. That's where artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies come in, he says.
Another point that the data and AI leader explored during his participation in the IBM event chat was how the relationship between big data – which is, in short, the analysis and interpretation of large volumes of data – and astronomy has grown in recent years. For him, this was symptomatic of the affinity that these two disciplines have.
Finally, Fabrício Lira said that the computação quântica will definitely impact astronomy. This is because we are talking about a type of computation that works through non-binary processing, which he classified as “very distinct”. This, according to Lira, will open new windows both in astronomy and in the general context of computing. “But it's something that is still very early on,” he warned.
A (brief) history of astronomy 26m3v
A very important part of the chat IBM event was in charge of the astrophysicist of the International Observatory, Ricardo Ogando. He talked about the evolution of astronomy, technology, commented on projects that are currently going on and what we can expect for the future of star observation.
“Since Man came out of the cave, he has looked to the sky to try to understand a part of his world.”
Ricardo Ogando, astrophysicist at the International Observatory.
The similarity to what Fabrício Lira had said minutes before is not redundant, but crucial for us to start exploring the history of astronomy. And it was from this speech that the astrophysicist began to explore this path.
From this analogy with the “caveman”, Ogando went to Hipparchus, a Greek who was an astronomer and mathematician, responsible for the first star catalog of which there is a record, which contained the positions of 850 stars. Who continued his work was Ptolemy, who discovered another 172 and made the number jump to 1.022.
Another milestone came from Galileo Galileo, astronomer, philosopher, physicist and mathematician. He was one of the first people to use a telescope to observe the stars. Thanks to his work, the number of known stars has jumped to 1,6. And he refuted the geocentric model, which placed the Earth as the center of the Universe.
Time ed, new telescopes and telescopes appeared, said the astrophysicist from the National Observatory. And the astronomer and composer william herschel was one of the first people to be able to observe comets. He also discovered the planet Uranus and observed nebulae, which are interstellar clouds of dust, hydrogen, helium and ionized gases. It is the union of these materials, including, that form stars. Therefore, nowadays nebulae are considered “cradles of stars”.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Ogando said that a very serious debate in the scientific community was focused on the question: is our galaxy all there is or are there others? A century has ed and today we have a concrete answer to this debate: yes, there are others. And there are probably about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
Another discovery that shook astronomy, according to the astrophysicist, was that the Universe is constantly expanding. And accelerated, on top of that. The fuel for this expansion is the dark energy, which Ogando said that no one really knows what it is until today.
By the way, Ogando said that he is part of a project that carries out a survey on dark energy (Dark Matter Surveillance, in the name in English), through observations carried out with a telescope whose lens is 500MP (hello samsung). According to the astrophysicist, this project is a kind of precursor to the type of work that will be carried out on the LSST telescope.
The most recent news in the world of astronomy, shared by the astrophysicist during the IBM event, was the launch of most accurate map of our galaxy, which happened this week. This map was made by the Gaia satellite and, according to Ogando, a good part of the observations that led to its elaboration were carried out on a supercomputer in Barcelona, Spain, which had IBM technology.
Ogando’s expectation for 2021 is that the LSST will be able to “make a high definition movie of the Universe”. According to him, if this happens, it would be possible to observe everything that moves in the sky, from asteroids to supernovas (which basically happen when a star dies and explodes).
When asked about Brazil's participation in the context of astronomy, the astrophysicist said that the country's most effective collaboration is in software development. He also said that Brazil tries to participate in as many projects as possible, in order to be “on the crest of the astronomical wave”.
Astronomy and Meteorology: More Related Than You Think 5h5z13
The meteorologist of The Weather Company of IBM Latin America, Luciana Oliveira, highlighted at the IBM event a relationship that can go unnoticed. She talked about how astronomy, in general, also depends on weather technologies. After all, the sky needs to be observable for astronomers and telescopes, right? You can't do this on very rainy and cloudy days, especially if you're an amateur astronomer.
“Astronomers need fast and accurate predictions. Only then can they plan their observations.”
Luciana Oliveira, meteorologist at The Weather Company of IBM Latin America
The meteorologist explained that technological evolution and digital transformation impacted meteorology as much as astronomy. To exemplify this, she said that, 40 years ago, there was not much data for weather forecasts and the stations were completely analog.
Then, she said, stations emerged that took hourly measurements and stored their data digitally. This, of course, has led to an increase in the amount of data generated and available for predictions.
Today, just like what is observed in astronomy, Luciana said that there is an “avalanche of data”. The good news is that, according to Luciana, all this data can be put into functional models to be assimilated with greater assertiveness.
To exemplify the technological advance of the last decades, the meteorologist mentioned that currently our cell phones are already equipped with parameters and thermometers, which can be used by weather forecasting apps as a source to collect weather data for the region where you are. That's if you allow apps to do so.
This subject led Luciana to comment on the The Weather Channel, which is IBM's weather app for mobile devices. It does just that: it explores these technologies embedded in cell phones to find out about weather conditions. According to her, the accuracy (or “resolution”, as she put it) is 500 meters.
In practice, this means that you can consult, in the application, the weather forecast specifically for your neighborhood. Quite different from the more general forecasts, for cities and states, that we see in the newspapers, right?
The application is free and available to Android phones and tablets, iPhones and iPads. The Weather app (and widget), which is already installed on Apple devices, uses The Weather Channel as a database to show weather forecasts.
What did you think of this IBM event and the chat topics? Tell us here in the comments!
