Spacecraft on autopilot

Scientists are looking at making smarter spacecraft, which would rely less on human inputs while in space.

For example, a future space mission to Titan, Saturn's intriguing (interesting) moon enveloped in clouds, might deploy a blimp to float around the thick atmosphere and survery the sand dunes and valleys below. But the blimp's ability to communicate would be limited.

A message would take about an hour and a half to travel more than 800 million miles to Earth, and any response would take another hour and a half to get to Titan. Three hours would be a long time to wait if the message were: "Help! I'm caught in a downdraft. What do I do?" And if the blimp were to spot something unusual, such as an eruption of an ice volcano, it might have drifted away before it received the command to "take a closer look".

In such cases, spacecraft with artificial intelligence can think for themselves. "These technologies are already in operation on specific missions", said Steve Chien, a scientist who heads the artificial intelligence group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Until recently, interplanetary robotic explorers have largely been marionettes (puppets) of mission controllers back on Earth. The controllers sent instructions, and the spacecraft diligently (carefully) executed them. But as missions go farther and become more ambitious, long-distance puppetry becomes less and less practical.

NASA's two rovers now on Mars - the Spirit and the Opportunity, also possess a measure of thinking ability. As they drive, the rovers use stereo cameras to judge the distance and size of rocks in their paths in order to figure out how to manoeuvre around obstacles.

"It picks the safest path that gets it closer to its goal", said Mark W. Maimone, a member of the team working on the rovers' software.

The New York Times

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Think smart

The need for smarter spacecraft has grown as missions have gone farther and become more complex.

Spacecraft that can think for themselves will therefore be less of a burden in space missions.

NASA's rovers on Mars possess some thinking ability.

The face of King Tut

King Tutankhamun had a pointy head, a prominent nose and a rounded forehead with large eyes. He was about 19 when he died, and apparently he was not murdered, as earlier research had suggested.

"He was supposed to be an iconic individual, and it was probably important that he look the part", New York University physical anthropologist (person who studies origin and history of mankind), Susan Anton said. "It's interesting that he looks so striking".

She led one of three forensic (used in law courts) teams which used a scan of King Tut's mummified remains to reconstruct the head and face of the boy pharaoh.

Two of the teams - one Egyptian and one French - knew his identity, while Dr. Anton's American team did not. The three sets of results, however, were surprisingly similar, agreeing on King Tut's unusual and arresting mix of male and female facial features. The study was reported in the June edition of National Geographic magazine.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquites and leader of the team that performed the CT scan in January, said in a press statement that the team found no signs of childhood disease, malnutrition or prolonged illness in King Tut, and no evidence of "foul play".

A report by Hawass in March rejected a theory that King Tut died from a blow to the head. Instead, King Tut suffered a bad fracture just above the left knee a few days before he died, he said, and "it is possible this injury became infected and killed the king".

King Tutankhamun, pharaoh of Egypt's 18th dynasty, died around 1323BC. He was buried in a tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings near Luxor.

Washington Post