Goto

Collaborating Authors

 uranus


6 science milestones turning 40 this year

Popular Science

In 1986, we had huge leaps forward, tragic steps back, and life changing innovations. NASA's STS-51L crew members pose for photographs during a break in countdown training at the White Room, Launch Complex 39, Pad B. Left to right are Teacher-in-Space payload specialist Sharon Christa McAuliffe; payload specialist Gregory Jarvis; and astronauts Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist; Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, mission commander; Ronald E. McNair, mission specialist; Mike J. Smith, pilot; and Ellison S. Onizuka, mission specialist. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. It was a year that saw roughly six million Americans hold hands in a continuous (more or less) line across the country to raise money for homelessness. A news anchor named Oprah Winfrey debuted her new talk show.


URANUS: Radio Frequency Tracking, Classification and Identification of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles

Lofù, Domenico, Di Gennaro, Pietro, Tedeschi, Pietro, Di Noia, Tommaso, Di Sciascio, Eugenio

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Safety and security issues for Critical Infrastructures are growing as attackers adopt drones as an attack vector flying in sensitive airspaces, such as airports, military bases, city centers, and crowded places. Despite the use of UAVs for logistics, shipping recreation activities, and commercial applications, their usage poses severe concerns to operators due to the violations and the invasions of the restricted airspaces. A cost-effective and real-time framework is needed to detect the presence of drones in such cases. In this contribution, we propose an efficient radio frequency-based detection framework called URANUS. We leverage real-time data provided by the Radio Frequency/Direction Finding system, and radars in order to detect, classify and identify drones (multi-copter and fixed-wings) invading no-drone zones. We adopt a Multilayer Perceptron neural network to identify and classify UAVs in real-time, with $90$% accuracy. For the tracking task, we use a Random Forest model to predict the position of a drone with an MSE $\approx0.29$, MAE $\approx0.04$, and $R^2\approx 0.93$. Furthermore, coordinate regression is performed using Universal Transverse Mercator coordinates to ensure high accuracy. Our analysis shows that URANUS is an ideal framework for identifying, classifying, and tracking UAVs that most Critical Infrastructure operators can adopt.


Uranus' moons Titania and Oberon may have oceans warm enough to support life

Daily Mail - Science & tech

If there is extraterrestrial life in our solar system, experts have long thought it could be hiding beneath Mars' surface, in Venus' clouds or in the icy oceans of Jupiter and Saturn's moons. NASA scientists say Uranus' moons Titania and Oberon may also have oceans warm enough to support life, suggesting that we should look there too in our hunt for aliens close to home. They made their discovery after re-analysing data from Voyager 2's close flybys of Uranus in the 1980s, as well as using computer modelling to look for signs of water on five of the planet's largest icy moons. It is the first piece of research to establish how the interior makeup and structure has evolved on Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, and Miranda. Distant ice worlds: NASA scientists say Uranus' moons Titania and Oberon may have oceans warm enough to support life.


NASA simulator creates stunning sunsets from alien planets across the solar system

Daily Mail - Science & tech

A simulation created stunning sunsets from alien worlds across the solar system. The animation transports viewers to the surface of Venus, Mars, Uranus and Saturn's largest moon Titan, allowing them to witness the sun dip into the horizon. As a planet rotates away from the sun's light, photons scattered in different directions that produce an array of colors. The sunset on Uranus is a light shade of blue that fades into a royal blue with hints of turquoise, while Titan's starts as a vibrant yellow then shifts into a fiery red. The animation transports viewers to the surface of Venus, Mars, Uranus and Saturn's largest moon Titan, allowing them to witness the sun dip into the horizon.


Here's What We'll Do in Space by 2118 - Facts So Romantic

Nautilus

In a mere 60 years, we of Earth have gone from launching our first spacecraft, to exploring every planet and major moon in our solar system, to establishing an international, long-lived fleet of robotic spacecraft at the Moon and Mars. What will we do in the next 100 years? With such rapid expansion of capability, it may seem difficult to tell what the next 60 years will bring, much less the next century. But we never do anything in space without first imagining what we could do, so in that spirit, here is an attempt to predict--and nudge us into--the future. So far, almost all of our exploration of worlds beyond Earth has been through the senses of robotic emissaries.


Here's What Space Actually Looks Like to the Human Eye

WIRED

Photos of space are everywhere online. Their beauty is dazzling, showing a universe awash in color and light. But if you're a skeptic, you've likely wondered whether it all truly looks like that in real life. Michael Benson tries his best to show you in his exhibition Otherworlds: Visions of Our Solar System. The artist took data from NASA and ESA missions to make 77 images of everything from Pluto to Europa that approximate true color as much as humanly possible. The work spans five decades of space exploration, and presents a realistic, flyby tour of the universe.