| Guests: Dimitar Sasselov, Ben Goertzel Exoplanets: In the first half of Wednesday's show, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University, Dimitar Sasselov, discussed the unprecedented breakthroughs in exoplanetary astronomy, and how they will shed new light on our place in the universe. He coined the term "super-Earth," which refers to rocky planets like Earth, only much larger. A number of such exoplanets have been discovered in the last few years, and recently there's been speculation that there could be billions of such super-Earths in our galaxy alone. While the Kepler Mission has excelled at discovering planets, they tend to be too far from Earth to adequately study their atmospheres and surfaces, he noted. So the next big step will be to discover planets that are closer to us and to look for signatures of life, he continued, adding that there's a proposal for a survey satellite called TESS which could locate planetary targets amongst the nearest stars for detailed viewing by the James Webb telescope (the successor to Hubble). Sasselov also talked about the transit of Venus on June 5th, the only time this planet will be seen moving between the Earth and the Sun this century. Artificial Intelligence: During the last hour, Dr. Brian Goertzel spoke about his work on artificial intelligence (AI) and its various applications. AI machines will excel in deciphering our modern economy and coming up with solutions, in a way that humans weren't evolved to do, he commented. Robot ... |
