astronomy
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Eric Schmidt Funds Hubble Telescope Successor
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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, have announced a significant investment in four innovative telescope projects, collectively called the Schmidt Observatory System. Among these, the space-based telescope named Lazuli stands out as a potential successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, promising enhanced capabilities for astronomical research. The Schmidts are funding these projects to support scientific advancements that might not receive government or private sector backing, potentially revolutionizing the field of astronomy and astrophysics. This matters because it represents a shift back to private funding for groundbreaking scientific instruments, potentially accelerating discoveries in space exploration.
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Gemini Model Enhances Supernova Detection
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Modern astronomy faces the challenge of identifying genuine cosmic events like supernovae among millions of alerts, most of which are false signals from various sources. Traditional machine learning models, such as convolutional neural networks, have been used to filter these alerts but often lack transparency, requiring astronomers to verify results manually. A new approach using Google's Gemini model has shown promise in not only matching the accuracy of these models but also providing clear explanations for its classifications. By using few-shot learning with just 15 annotated examples, Gemini can effectively act as an expert assistant, offering both high accuracy and understandable reasoning, which is crucial as next-generation telescopes increase the volume of data significantly.