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August 04, 2014

Tech of Interest: Big Data in Space, Where Man's Reach Meets His Grasp

By Adam Brandt, Web Editor

On March 6th, 2009, in an effort to better fathom the universe around us, man projected into the stars the Kepler space observatory.  The mission of this unmanned spacecraft was, and is, simple: to seek out, discover, and document habitable planets.  Astronomy however is not as simple now as it was in the time of Galileo, one does not simply point a telescope at bright and easily discernable objects. 



Modern day astronomy is tantamount to big data analytics; Kepler sends back myriads of data in the form of abstract curves and spiked graphs, and it is up to scientists to sift through, analyze, and separate planet from void. 

"Kepler's mission is to determine whether Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of other stars are frequent or rare; whether life in our Milky Way galaxy is likely to be frequent or rare", explained William Borucki, NASA's Principal Investigator on the Kepler Mission, back in 2009.

The problem now lies not with space exploration technology, but rather our ability to analyze that data right here on the ground.

Examples of big data fostering NASA’s enquiry of what appears to be lifeless expanse have truly come in myriads, none so prevalent as April’s discovery of what is described as “Earth’s cousin”.

Image via Shutterstock

"This [Kepler-186f] is an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a cooler star. So, while it's not Earths twin, it is perhaps an Earth cousin. It has similar characteristics, but a different parent," asserts Tom Barclay, Kepler scientist, in a statement to Space.com.

The Kepler-186f unfortunately finds itself orbiting to small a star, known as red dwarfs, and therefore would not sufficiently sustain life as we have come to know it.

“But that first alien Earth may lurk somewhere in Kepler's huge data set, just waiting to be pulled out by mission scientists,” states Mike Wall, senior editor of Space.com, in a bout of hopeful conjecture.

As of January 2012, after just three years of orbit, Kepler uncovered approximately 2,740 planetary candidates amidst a tumult of unorganized, unstructured, unexamined, ‘colossal data’.

Robert Browning is famously quoted as stating, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp – or what’s a heaven for?” Space is still far too expansive, still too far out of reach, and it is yielding data at a rate with which we cannot keep up.  Innovation in space will not come without innovation in the sphere of big data, and in the end, it is big data that will help to make that ‘giant leap for mankind’.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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