The Quietest Place on Earth, AI on Mars and Caves on the Moon
July 25
This week we visit the quietest place on earth. A place so quiet, you can hear your blood flowing and your bones creaking. We discover how the Mars rovers are using AI to speed up their work considerably. We investigate some caves on the moon which may be suitable for constructing future lunar bases. We initially colonized the Earth by living in caves. It makes sense that we do the same on the moon. Finally we examine a new micro spectrometer that is so small it could become a wearable device or potentially an app in our phones.
The Quietest Place on Earth
Inside an anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota is considered to be the quietest place on earth. It is so silent that you can hear your blood flowing and bones moving.
The chamber is made of 3.3 foot thick fiberglass acoustic wedges and double walls of insulated steel and thick concrete. The room absorbs 99.99% of sound. The record for the longest that a person has been able to endure this level of silence is only 55 minutes.
You have to sit inside the chamber in complete darkness. The quieter the room the more things you hear. With this level of silence your ears will adapt and focus inward. Participants can hear their heart beating, sometimes their lungs breathing and their stomach gurgling loudly.
Participants have to sit in the room as we orient ourselves via the sounds that we make when moving. Once we lose the perceptual clues that allow us to balance and maneuver, you have to be in a chair.
After 30 minutes most participants start to hallucinate, some start witnessing miracles. If you want to try and break the record you can pay US$600 per hour and experience the quietest place on earth for yourself.
AI and the Mars Rover
For the past 3 years the Mars Rover (Perseverance) has been testing a form of artificial intelligence that seeks out minerals on the surface of the planet. Perseverance can make autonomous decisions based upon real time analysis of each rock’s composition.
The Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) software maps the chemical composition of minerals across a rock’s surface via a spectrometer developed by NASA. PIXL allows scientists to determine if the rocks formed in conditions that could have been supportive of microbial life in the past.
It takes between 4 and 21 minutes for a message from Mars to reach earth and the same to return (the time varies depending upon where both planets are in their orbit). By using adaptive sampling, the software is able to determine if a rock contains any interesting minerals and make a decision to investigate further or to move on. By removing the need for a human to examine the data, a lot of valuable time is saved.
The temperature variations are enough on Mars for Perseverance’s telescopic arm to expand or contract throwing off sampling. The AI can make appropriate adjustments to allow the arm to move exceptionally close to rocks without touching them.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover uses a laser to zap rocks that are up to 3,700 kilometers away. An AI then examines the gases that are released following the zapping to reveal the rock’s chemical composition.
Mars is close enough for us to communicate with each day. It provides a wonderful environment for testing new AI applications that will be able to be used on more distant planets and moons where daily communication is not possible.
Caves on the Moon
NASA have discovered some evidence that a series of caves exist below the Moon’s surface. A team re-examining data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter collected in 2010 found evidence of a cave extending more than 200 feet from the base of a pit on the moon. The suspected cave is 370 kilometers from the site of the first moon landing.
Researchers suspect that the lunar caves formed when molten lava flowed beneath a field of cooled lava. A crust forms over the river of lava which then leaves a long hollow tunnel when the lava river eventually cools. Cave ins of the solidified surface lava will leave a pit that can lead into the rest of the cave system.
The cave systems may provide suitable sites for future lunar bases. Removing the need for tunneling. Future lunar bases are likely to be underground if possible as it helps to protect shelters from cosmic rays, solar radiation and micrometeorites. NASA may also be able to save a lot of money if they could find Dr Evil’s former lair in the underground cave systems on the moon. It will need renovation and cleaning up but difficult parts of construction are already done.
Micro Spectrometer
About 6 years ago I was trying to solve a problem for a start up that I was working on. Talking to an engineer at a startup function he suggested that I should try hyper spectral imaging. His view was that within 5 years we would all have a hyper spectral imager on our phones. At the time the machines were the size of two single beds on top of each other.
Almost in line with his prediction a team from Chinese University of Hong Kong and several institutes in China have developed a micro sized spectral imager. The new system is based upon an optical image spacer integrated photo multiplication organic photo detector. The device has a footprint of 0.0004 square centimeters. Small enough for phones and wearables.
The device could operate across the visible spectrum with a sub 5 nano meter resolution. An 8 * 8 sensor array was used to create a hyper spectral imager. Hyper spectral imaging allows detection of the unique spectral images of specific objects. This may be used in fraud detection and it may also have potential medical applications.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.