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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityScience & EnvironmentSolar eclipse 2024: Millions in North America will view what promises to be a blockbusterPublished16 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty Images/St Louis Post-DispatchImage caption, The good people of Carbondale get to do it all over again, and for longerBy Jonathan AmosScience correspondent@BBCAmosHow lucky can the residents of Carbondale, Illinois, be? Celestial mechanics says any one spot on the Earth’s surface should experience a total solar eclipse only once every 375 years, on average. The 30,000 residents of the Midwestern city will probably chuckle at that statistic because they are about to witness the Moon block out the Sun’s disc for the second time in just seven years.And what’s more, the upcoming 8 April eclipse will be even better than the one they got to see in 2017. The sky will go pitch black for 4 minutes and 9 seconds, nearly double what happened last time.Image source, Getty ImagesAs many as 200,000 people are expected to flood prime viewing locations in southern Illinois for The Great American Eclipse, Part II. But this will be true, also, all along the eclipse path, from Mexico’s Pacific coast to Canada’s Atlantic seaboard. The upcoming event is set to be a blockbuster.US space agency mission lines up to ‘touch the Sun’The radio ‘weirdness’ associated with eclipsesHow solar eclipses have shaped historyIn 2017, the path of deepest shadow – “totality” – ran from Oregon in the US north-west to South Carolina in the south-east. That actually covered some sparsely populated regions, including many national parks. The 2024 event, in contrast, will cover some major US urban areas, such Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Buffalo. “This is going to be the most populated eclipse in the US, with 31.5 million people able to just walk outside of their homes to experience it,” Dr Kelly Korreck, the US space agency’s eclipse programme manager, told BBC News.Image source, SWRI/NASAImage caption, Artwork: Jets equipped with Nasa instruments will chase the shadowAs you’d expect, Nasa will be doing understated experiments on the day, such as launching rockets into the shadow cast by the Moon to see how it affects the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, or its ionosphere. Instrumented jet planes will also chase the shadow.”The reason that we’re flying aeroplanes, besides the fact that it’s really cool, is because getting up high into the atmosphere means you can actually access wavelengths of light you can’t do from the ground,” said Dr Amir Caspi from the Southwest Research Institute.The 2024 total solar eclipse will begin way out in the Pacific Ocean, with the inhabitants of Penrhyn Atoll, part of the Cook Islands, greeted by a darkened Sun at dawn, at 06:40 CKT (16:40 GMT). The Moon’s deep shadow, or umbra, will then race across the Earth’s surface at more than 2,500km/h (1,500mph), crossing the Mexican coast at 11:07 MST (18:07 GMT) and the Rio Grande border between Mexico and the US at 13:27 CDT (18:27 GMT). Image source, Getty ImagesThe journey continues up through 13 US states, skimming the Canadian border – with Hamilton (15:18 EDT; 19:18 GMT) and Montreal (15:26 EDT; 19:26 GMT) just inside the totality path – before sweeping out over the provinces of New Brunswick (16:32 ADT; 19:32 GMT) and Newfoundland (17:09 NDT; 19:39 GMT). The Moon’s umbra will lift off the Earth’s surface in the Atlantic Ocean at 21:55 CEST (19:55 GMT), about 1,120km (700 miles) west of Normandy, France. Sorry, Europe; a partial eclipse low on the horizon at sunset is the best you will get.Image caption, A promotional poster from astronomer/artist Tyler Nordgren (Credit: tylernordgren.com)Keen sky-watchers largely have their plans already in place. They’ll have studied transport and accommodation options and paid close attention to historic weather patterns. The chances of avoiding confounding clouds are best in Mexico and Texas. But in truth, on any one day, in any one place, the weather could be your friend or a killjoy – and that applies to Carbondale, too. Image source, S R Habbal and M DruckmüllerImage caption, A total solar eclipse affords a rare opportunity to study the Sun’s coronaYou might think that with all the space telescopes trained on the Sun these days that there’s very little an eclipse can add to the sum of solar knowledge. But total eclipses are special because they afford favourable conditions to study the tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun – its corona.It is in this magnetised, superheated “gas” of charged particles that the solar wind originates, and from which billions of tonnes of matter can occasionally burst towards the Earth to disrupt satellites, communications and even electricity grids.The corona is outshone by the Sun’s surface, its photosphere. Satellites will block out the glare using devices called coronagraphs, but those are usually so wide that they also obstruct the view of light immediately above the edge of the star. It’s in this zone where the corona’s key processes are occurring. Only during an eclipse, when the Moon’s disc just matches that of the Sun, do all aspects of the corona become accessible. Image source, Aberystwyth UniversityImage caption, UK and US scientists have been working on eclipse observationsBritish scientists have teamed up with Nasa to deploy instruments in Dallas. They’ll have a polarimeter to examine the directional quality of the corona’s light and a spectrometer to look for the behaviour of excited iron atoms. “During an eclipse, nature gives us a unique opportunity to measure this region with relative ease, and to see the connections between the Sun and solar wind,” explained Dr Huw Morgan from Aberystwyth University.Image source, AFPImage caption, However you watch the eclipse, doing it safely is paramount.But you don’t need to be a professional scientist to participate in eclipse science. There are numerous citizen research projects. For example:The Sunsketcher initiative needs help measuring the precise shape of the Sun. Yes, it’s round, but ever so slightly squished at the poles.Eclipse Soundscapes will record how the natural world, particularly animals, react when plunged into darkness. Bees quit flying, apparently.The Globe Observer project needs help recording temperature changes and the behaviour of clouds. And Eclipse Megamovie will once again employ an army of DSLR cameras to capture an extended view of the event. “Having people all along the path is going to be a force multiplier for these observations and enable us to take longer observations and more correlate what’s happening and changing,” said Nasa’s Dr Liz MacDonald, who’s been coordinating a lot of citizen science activity.Get out there and enjoy it, but do it safely. Don’t look at the exposed Sun with the naked eye. Montana and North Dakota will see the tail end of a total solar eclipse in 2044, but the next such event to cross a broad swathe of the US won’t occur until the following year.”It’s special,” said Dr Korreck, “that’s why you should try to experience it”.Related TopicsEclipsesTop StoriesPrincess of Wales: I am having cancer treatmentPublished1 hour agoLive. At least 40 dead in Moscow concert hall attack, Russian intelligence service saysPeople take cover as gunmen enter Moscow concert hall. 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[ad_1] As many as 200,000 people are expected to flood prime viewing locations in southern Illinois for The Great American Eclipse, Part II. But this will be true, also, all…
![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityBusinessMarket DataEconomyYour MoneyCompaniesTechnology of BusinessCEO SecretsArtificial IntelligenceHow AI is helping the search for extraterrestrial lifePublished24 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, The Very Large Array facility in New Mexico is searching for signs of alien lifeBy Emma WoollacottBusiness reporterThere are between 10 and 50 billion potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy, says Bill Diamond. It makes his job rather difficult.Mr Diamond is the chief executive of the US-based research organisation Seti Institute. The letters “Seti” are an acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”Seti, as an endeavour, is looking for science and technology beyond the solar system as evidence of life and intelligence, and that’s by and large a needle in a haystack problem,” he says.”We’re looking for something that is likely exceedingly rare, and may be very difficult to find and extract from the background phenomena that you’re observing at the same time.”But new tools are helping the search. The ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to both handle massive datasets – and to spot anomalies – is transforming the hunt for alien intelligence.One such project involves a Seti Institute partnership with the US’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico. This federal facility uses radio frequencies to study celestial objects, such as planets, stars and asteroids.Seti is building a parallel, AI-powered software system for the observatory’s core facility, the Very Large Array. Built between 1973 and 1981, the VLA comprises 28 large, 25m diameter, dish antennas spaced out across a desert plain. Imagine the satellite dishes you find on people’s homes, just on a giant scale.When operational, the AI will be able to process every bit of data captured – two terabytes (TB) every second. To put that into context, modern laptops now typically have around 1TB of total storage.Image source, Bill DiamondImage caption, Mr Diamond says that the use of AI is already invaluableMr Diamond says that the increased use of AI is already proving to be “indispensable” as his institute continues to hunt for alien life.He points to AI making it possible to search for new types of radio signals from alien sources. He explains that traditionally, Seti has looked for narrowband signals similar to those used by human beings.”But there was always the question ‘what if there’s an alien advanced technology that is using wideband [radio]?’. And if that’s the case, our traditional methods wouldn’t work, it would look like a bunch of noise on the screen.”However, Mr Diamond says that the ability of AI to handle massive amounts of data means it’s possible to take millions of “snapshots” of this snowy audio picture over time, and to start to look for patterns. “It’s a way of adding on a new thing to look for.”Another project with which Seti collaborates is Breakthrough Listen. Backed by more than £100m of private sector funding, this scheme is scanning a million stars, and 100 galaxies, across a wide range of radio and optical bands, to look for evidence of technological life. One project member, University of Toronto student Peter Ma, recently developed a new AI system designed to examine telescope data, and distinguish between possible real signals from aliens, and interference. His team did this by simulating both types of noise, and then training their AI to differentiate between the two.Mr Ma says that an alien signal would, for example, “only appear when we point our telescopes at it… and disappear when we point away”. The project has already identified eight potential alien signals that went undetected by traditional analysis. However, Mr Ma believes that as the observations haven’t yet been repeated they are probably false positives.AI is also being used to try to detect signs of life of a more modest nature, and closer to home.Last year, Nasa’s Perseverance rover started collecting samples from the Jezero Crater on Mars, which will, if all goes well, be returned to Earth in several years’ time.Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Nasa’s Perseverance rover is collecting rock samples from the surface of MarsAlready, scientists believe that the rover’s Sherloc instrument has detected organic compounds, which glow under ultraviolet light. However, organic compounds can be created by non-biological processes, meaning that it’s not yet possible to say whether they derive from past life on the planet.All this could change, though, thanks to new research from the Carnegie Institution for Science, which is using AI to analyse rock samples for signs of present or past life. The team found that the AI is able to distinguish former living and non-living material, with an accuracy of almost 90%.”This is a very new approach to searching for molecular biosignatures,” says joint lead researcher Dr Robert Hazen.”We employ machine learning to look at all of the vast amount of data from an analytical method that produces half a million data points per sample. So we’re seeking subtle patterns in molecular distributions.”Read additional stories on artificial intelligenceThe first plans are to use the system to analyse ancient samples from Earth, as well as some Martian samples in the form of meteorites. But, says Mr Hazen, “We could, for example, fly an instrument through the plumes of Enceladus [one of Saturn’s moons], or land a carefully designed instrument on Mars.”It’s early days, and any promising results generated by AI need to be validated by other observations, or by physics-based models, before they can be shouted from the rooftops. But as more and more data is collected and analysed, the chances of detecting alien life – if it exists – are increasing all the time.In the meantime, though, says Mr Diamond, “The progress is measured in the scale of the effort, not yet in the results.”Related TopicsArtificial intelligenceTop StoriesCommons descends into chaos over Gaza votePublished1 hour agoWatch: Angry scenes as MPs clash over ceasefire vote. VideoWatch: Angry scenes as MPs clash over ceasefire votePublished3 hours agoAnti-terror failures leave public at risk – ex-adviserPublished2 hours agoFeatures’Dad, please don’t go out’: The Gazans killed as Israel freed hostages’Premier League caught my online troll. Should I forgive him?’Watch: Chaos in the Commons over Gaza ceasefire vote. VideoWatch: Chaos in the Commons over Gaza ceasefire voteListen: Newscast – Disorder Disorder in the House of Commons. AudioListen: Newscast – Disorder Disorder in the House of CommonsAttributionSoundsK-Pop acts outsold everyone except Taylor Swift in 2023The strangers who saved each other’s livesWatch Big Keith’s iconic scotch egg scene from The Office. 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![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaDemocrats rally around Biden as report raises age concernsPublished1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Democrats who have spent time with Mr Biden have defended him as sharp and focusedBy Sam Cabral & Madeline HalpertBBC News on Capitol Hill & from New YorkDemocrats are defending President Joe Biden after a report on his handling of classified documents raised concerns about his age and mental fitness. Mr Biden will not be charged for keeping classified documents, but the report cast him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.Vice-President Kamala Harris slammed the description as “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate”.She also alleged the prosecutor was “clearly politically motivated”.Robert Hur, a Donald Trump appointee who has previously clerked for two well-known conservative judges, was appointed to lead the Biden classified document probe last year.Prosecutor faces political glare after Biden reportHis selection by US Attorney General Merrick Garland that January came as the justice department faced criticism from Republicans over a separate special counsel appointment to investigate Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of top secret files.But Mr Hur’s publicly-released report included a letter from the White House asking that the comments about the president’s memory be revised “in a manner that is within the bounds of your expertise and remit”.Ms Harris, who has previously served as a prosecutor, echoed that criticism at a news conference on Friday.”The way that the president’s demeanour in that report was characterised could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated,” she said.”When it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect there would be a higher level of integrity.”Political grenade puts spotlight on Biden’s ageWho is the special counsel in the Biden probe?Democratic allies on Capitol Hill also told the BBC they believed Mr Hur’s remarks went beyond the scope of the investigation. “I think it was an entirely inappropriate way to approach the remit of the special counsel and the role of the special counsel,” Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon said.”It’s unfortunate it wandered into territory that was so inappropriate.”Minnesota’s Tina Smith called Mr Hur’s comments “outrageous” and “despicable”, accusing him of “blatantly politicising” his role as special counsel.Since launching his re-election campaign, Mr Biden has been plagued by concerns about his age and mental capacities.He is 81, just a few years older than the front-runner Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, 77. This report has done little to assuage voters’ concerns. It alleged that Mr Biden could not remember when his son Beau died of cancer or when he served as vice-president during interviews with investigators. But Democrats who spoke to the BBC on Friday said they remain unconcerned about the president’s mental faculties.Summing up his takeaways from the report, Senator Jon Ossoff from Georgia said: “No charges recommended. Unusual commentary straying from what one would typically expect in a focused and substantive report. Ultimately just noise.”The youngest member of the Senate, Mr Ossoff emphasised that he had spent a “substantial amount of time” with the president in recent months. “I’ve found him to be sharp, focused, impressive, formidable and effective,” he said.Mr Ossoff’s colleagues agreed, including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who called the president “thoughtful and experienced” at a Friday news conference. Democrats remain “absolutely confident” in the president, he said. “We want to stick with somebody who understands what this country needs.”This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Media caption, Watch: Biden responds to special counsel – “I’m elderly and know what the hell I’m doing”But some of his counterparts across the aisle said Mr Hur’s observations had added fuel to the growing perception that Mr Biden is not up to the job of president. “He’s trying to do his best, and his best is beginning to concern me,” North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis told the BBC. “I don’t care if you’re 78 or 178, if you’re going to be the leader of the free world, you’ve got to be on your game 100%,” the moderate Republican said. Concerns about Mr Biden’s age are “an enduring problem” for his re-election campaign, Larry Sabato, the director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told the BBC.Experts have noted that polling suggests Mr Trump does not face as much criticism from voters about his age, despite having similar gaffes as Mr Biden on the campaign trail.In recent months, both Mr Biden and Mr Trump have made a series of public errors while publicly speaking, confusing names of world leaders and US politicians on several occasions. But Mr Trump’s bombastic style and “constant offensive posture” may fuel perceptions of him as a more energetic candidate, said Chris Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.Worries about Mr Trump’s age “don’t seem to stick in the same way”, he said. But for Mr Biden, his campaign will have to be focused on addressing the perception that he is not mentally fit for office.”The report adds to the steepness of [Biden’s] efforts to overcome what is undoubtedly a significant hindrance to his campaign,” Mr Borick said. 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