Hacker News with Generative AI: Space

Are the Colors in Astronomical Images 'Real'? (scientificamerican.com)
In colorful photographs of galaxies, stars, planets, and more, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get
Weird planet is orbiting backwards between two stars (newscientist.com)
After two decades of debate, research confirms that an odd binary star system has an equally odd planetary companion
Space Force tech mission threatened by staff and funding black hole (theregister.com)
Budget slashing has 'outsized impact' on us, says commander who fears branch not ready for orbital war
China launches first of 2,800 satellites for AI space computing constellation (spacenews.com)
HELSINKI — China launched 12 satellites early Wednesday for an on-orbit computing project led by startup ADA Space and Zhejiang Lab.
Largest database of nanosatellites, over 4400 nanosats and CubeSats (nanosats.eu)
World's largest database of nanosatellites, over 4400 nanosats and CubeSats
Live, 24/7 4K ultra high-def video of Earth from space (space.com)
Project West Ford (wikipedia.org)
Project West Ford (also known as Westford Needles and Project Needles) was a test carried out by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory on behalf of the United States military in 1961 and 1963 to create an artificial ionosphere above the Earth.
Starcloud (ycombinator.com)
Starcloud is building a network of megawatt-scale data centers in space, scaleable to gigawatt capacity, to be able to train large models like GPT6.
NASA turns the screams of a dying star into music (space.com)
One Alien's Trash Is Another Alien's Treasure (thebsdetector.substack.com)
Fair warning: lots of technical content in this post. I have provided an abundance of hyperlinks that might provide some useful background.
Satellite will have to be turned off when it floats over the US (thecooldown.com)
Determined to measure how much carbon Earth's forests capture, the European Space Agency and Airbus have developed the Biomass satellite.
Soviet-era spacecraft plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit (theguardian.com)
A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half century after its failed launch to Venus.
Cosmos 482 Descent Craft tracker (tacc.utexas.edu)
AstriaGraph is a public-private partnership in which the partners have agreed to limit commercial uses by third parties.
From the Debris of Halley's Comet (nautil.us)
Fragments of the storied Halley’s Comet are zinging into Earth’s atmosphere this week in the annual Eta Aquarids meteor shower, which will peak in the early dark of Tuesday morning.
Cosmos-482 descent craft re-entry prediction (blogs.esa.int)
On 10 May, an uncontrolled reentry will take place of the so-called Cosmos-482 descent craft, a Soviet Venera landing capsule that launched 53 years ago.
Kosmos 482 Descent Craft reentry forecasts (blogspot.com)
In the second week of May 2025, an unusual object will reenter. It concerns the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft (1972-023E, cat. nr. 6073).
Radiation Tolerant Software Framework for Space Applications (github.com/r0nlt)
A C++ framework for implementing machine learning models that can operate reliably in radiation environments, such as space. This framework implements industry-standard radiation tolerance techniques validated against NASA and ESA reference models.
18-Year-Old U.S. Teen Develops AI to Reveal 1.5M New Space Objects (techoreon.com)
What began as a childhood fascination with stars has turned into one of the most striking discoveries in recent astronomy.
Exceptionally rare radio sources detected in the distant universe (mashable.com)
Astronomers have spotted a pair of exotic features believed to be the aftermath of a colossal cosmic smackdown — not between two galaxies, but two groups of galaxies.
Elon Musk's Starbase in Texas will officially become a city (bbc.com)
The area where Elon Musk's SpaceX company operates on the southern tip of Texas is to officially become a city called Starbase.
SpaceX launch site is approved as the new city of Starbase (apnews.com)
A missile from Yemen halts flights in Israel hours before top officials vote on plans for Gaza war
Falling satellites put the atmosphere at risk (bloomberg.com)
Daily life increasingly depends on systems of satellites orbiting Earth. As fleets proliferate, ever greater numbers of expired units will hurtle back toward the surface.
US Buzzes China's Military Satellites in Unfolding Space Rivalry (newsweek.com)
An American military satellite was reportedly "buzzing" its Chinese counterparts as China rapidly advances in a new space race to challenge U.S. leadership in this domain.
Weapons of war are launching from Cape Canaveral since 1988 (arstechnica.com)
The US military launched a long-range hypersonic missile Friday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a test flight that, if successful, could pave the way for the weapon's operational deployment later this year.
Magnetic Collapse: A Spur to Evolution? (centauri-dreams.org)
The sublime, almost fearful nature of deep time sometimes awes me even more than the kind of distances we routinely discuss in these pages.
Webb brings dying star's energetic display into full focus (phys.org)
Gas and dust ejected by a dying star at the heart of NGC 1514 came into complete focus thanks to mid-infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope.
Astronomers confirm the existence of a lone black hole (phys.org)
A team of astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute, working with one colleague from the University of St Andrews' Center for Exoplanet Science and another from the European Southern Observatory, has confirmed the existence of a lone black hole.
A satellite ended up as a ghostly apparition on Google Earth (arstechnica.com)
Zoom in over rural North Texas for a spacey surprise.
An image of the Australian desert illuminates satellite pollution (thisiscolossal.com)
In January 2021, Joshua Rozells ventured out into the Pinnacles Desert in Western Australia, intending to photograph a star trail. But after shooting for more than three hours and reviewing his images, he realized that the light patterns he captured weren’t what he had hoped for.
SpaceX pitches subscription model for Trump's Golden Dome (teslarati.com)
SpaceX pitched a subscription model for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome for America.