Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Space Science

Cyber Planets: Building Virtual Worlds to Explore 31

Posted by timothy from the real-artifice dept.
core plexus writes "Space.com has an interesting article on 'Cyber Planets': NASA plans to create hundreds of 'synthetic planets' that might represent real worlds orbiting faraway stars. Also tells about the Planetary Finder Mission, and an interview with one of the creators. Doesn't describe what software they're using, though."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Cyber Planets: Building Virtual Worlds to Explore More

Cyber Planets: Building Virtual Worlds to Explore

Comments Filter:
  • ...it's the Terrestrial Planet Finder at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/new_approach_02 0510.html

  • And at home .. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by McCarrum ( 446375 ) <mark.limburg@g m a i l . com> on Tuesday December 10, 2002 @05:29PM (#4858124)
    Can we use this technology to build virtual environments for Earth? Want to walk on the ocean floor? Want to see the world from the top of Mt. Everest?

    Other planets are cool. So is ours.
  • What about building this virtual worlds to thoroughly test their landers/robots/etc before sending them millions of miles to see them fail?
    Seems like building dropping these landers from high altitudes and landing in these land scapes might be just the thing they need to do before sending the next lander to its doom.
    • It is very, very difficult to build a lander, launch it a billion miles across the solar system, and have it actually land on a planet successfully. There already test landers as you have mentioned.

      Point 1:
      If you want more information on virtual worlds technologies and lander prototyping applications, check out the Sense8 [sense8.com] product line. They have a good virtual world program that the astrophysicists use to model, design, and test mars landers. I've used WorldUp, WorldToolKit, and World2World, and can vouch that these are really good products. I think they have a user group on Yahoo. This, however, is probably not the kind of virtual world that NASA is going to be building for this project.

      Point 2:
      Also, you may want to check out the Laboratory for Advanced Space Research [uchicago.edu], at the University of Chicago, for information on the kind of data modeling that they are doing. They run a laboratory down at the Enrico Fermi Institute, where they build the nuclear powered satellites and nuclear powered space probes which they launch. Anyhow, I used to work down at the Enrico Fermi Institute, and I'll tell you this: 1. A whole lot of work goes into building a nuclear powered space probe or satellite. 2. NASA would very much build a hundred virtual worlds to help support those kinds of projects.

      Specifically, as the article mentioned, there are certain and specific things which the astronomers and astrophysicists look for. These metrics include intensities, spectra, arrival directions, nuclear and isotopic composition of galactic cosmic rays, anomalous components, solar energetic particles, and particles accelerated in solar winds and planetary magnetospheres.

      You see, the purpose of these virtual worlds isn't really to make landscapes for gamers to play Quake on. Rather, they are developing heuristics for space probes which are going to be launched in the future.

      So, the virtual worlds which they are describing are summations of matrices, probably expressed in a quantum mechanical notation, utilizing a many-worlds interpretation. These matrices correspond to minimum and maximum values of ranges of the above mentioned metrics which the astronomers and astronauts are looking for.

  • Betcha? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kizarny ( 246599 )
    I've got ten bucks that says the visible light coronograph beats out interferometry. VLC sounds like an advanced version of the pinhole box (http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/how.html) we used to look at the solar eclipse in elementary school and that's so crazy it just might work.
  • But everyone knows they've been running this project since at least 1969 when they produced synthetic views from the surface of the moon...

  • Yeow (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CheshireCatCO ( 185193 )
    The article is actually rather scant on details. But it is my guess that they are NOT going to be generating small-scale detailed models. So no views of planet surfaces. I'm guessing that they're going to use the planetary parameters as inputs and see how different organisms thrive or die off. The alternative is just much too complex and full of unknow parameters.
    Which means that this project is inherently very limited in its abilities. They'll have to work on averaged and estimated behaviors for the biota and they can't investigate detailed niches. Most disturbing from a biological perspective is that they are really only investigating "live as we know it", since we have no idea how other life forms might exist. So in a very real sense they aren't really learning a whole lot that is new.

    This is just my impression and interpretation, though. If they can do more detailed models, I'd be deeply, deeply impressed.

    • Re:Yeow (Score:2, Informative)

      by Drog ( 114101 )
      I ran this same story on my site today. More details are offered at the VPL [caltech.edu] website. They say that their models will be the first to combine the radiative fluxes, climate, chemistry, geology and biology of a terrestrial planet, to generate a wide range of plausible atmospheres for extrasolar planets, and for the atmospheres of early Earth.

  • Alien planets... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Tuesday December 10, 2002 @06:18PM (#4858519) Homepage Journal
    Doesn't describe what software they're using, though.

    It's "Elite II - Frontier". :-)

  • These are great news, for people interested in science (I read about it some time ago), however I am afraid it will give new arguments to all of those people, who believe, that the landing on the Moon was a hoax. These people, as well as everyone, who believes in the, so called, "conspiracy theories," are usually so ignorant (some people say they are "stupid," but, as a man of science, I have to respect even those points of view, which I don't agree with, or which are simply wrong, so I refuse using the term "stupid" to insult these people--after all, people tend to believe in many strange theories and religions, which, in my opinion, doesn't automatically make them "stupid"), that they will not listen to our explanations that this technology is very new and that we had no such computers in 1969, which would be even comparable with what we have today. This, however, can start the argument all over again. I hope NASA has already thought about counter arguments in that discussion.

  • When we can transform Mars into a haven for space nerds with a Genesis device [stardestroyer.net]!

    Not only will we create a new planet, then we can take Venus and make it into Rura Penthe [tos.net], thus finding a place for the RIAA executives to live.

  • VPL vs TPF (Score:2, Informative)

    by astrobabe ( 533099 )
    Ahh gee read the article- VPL is for the theory end- it's where scientists can model planet formation for both our solar system and others. Part of the purpose of VPL is to be able to model the formation of our own solar system so we can greater understand other solar systems and solar systems with brown dwarfs. TPF- Terrestrial Planet Finder is the telescope that will come after SIRTF and NGST (now know as the James Webb Space Telescope). Also, Vikki is not the "creator" of anything- she is the Principal Investigator for the NASA Astrobiology Institute and she is also on the Science Working Panel for TPF.

  • Of course, one of those NASA scientists must, just MUST, create a planet for the express purpose of finding the answer to the great question:

    What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

  • What software are they using? Why, the newly rereleased Star Control 2, of course.
  • I just don't seem to get what this will accomplish.

    They appear to be generating/creating virtual worlds which may be orbiting stars and then look for life on the artifical planet (which may be modified to produce outcomes).

    Technology (IMO) isn't sophisticated enough to make evolutionary decisions from a (possibly) multi-million dollar waste of money (not mine, I don't live in the US). That's what TV is for ;)
    • This page at NASA [nasa.gov] gives the up side.
      I'll put a small quote from it here;
      The classical example, often cited, is the discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895. Within a year of their discovery, x-rays were being put to practical use in medicine, and in time became of enormous value in medicine, industry, and scientific research. Roentgen's discovery resulted from experimenting with electron beams in evacuated tubes. Had he been directly seeking something of value for the medical profession, he would most likely have put away his electron beams and taken up some more "practical" line of investigation, and the discovery of x-rays would have been postponed.

      If you demand a guarentee of payoff for scientific investigation, virtually all research would stop. There just isn't anything that's a sure thing.

      Planetary modelling just might allow us to have some idea of how fast we are burning this biosphere out, or get a solid handle on weather patterns, floods, and droughts.
      Or who knows it might lead to self tieing shoe laces.

      Check out his book The Pinball Effect [howstuffworks.com] for history on how unrelated inventions created almost everything we associate with modern civilization.

  • VPL's home page (Score:2, Informative)

    by Eminence ( 225397 )
    For more data about the whole project go to Virtual Planetary Laboratory Homepage [caltech.edu].

Slashdot Top Deals

Your own mileage may vary.

Close