Day: July 4, 2019

(Xinhua)10:10, June 24, 2019

Night view of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope [File photo: Xinhua]

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) — How many new suns could emerge in the Milky Way in the future?

Chinese astronomers plan to use the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), by far the largest telescope ever built, to search for birthplaces of new suns so they can better understand how stars and life substances are formed.

Astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently caught the birth of a dark molecular cloud for the first time by using three telescopes of the United States and Europe. The discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal, and introduced by the journal Nature as a research highlight.

Li Di, chief scientist of FAST, said hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe and the main raw material for star formation, exists mainly in the form of atoms in the universe.

Only after the hydrogen atoms turn into hydrogen molecules, can gravitational collapse and nuclear fusion reactions be triggered, thus lighting up new stars, Li explained.

The key step of turning hydrogen atoms into hydrogen molecules happens on the surface of cosmic dust, said Li.

Scientists found dark regions in the universe that are rich in atomic and molecular gases and cosmic dust, known as interstellar dark clouds, which are the birthplaces of new stars, new planets, and possibly life.

However, the interstellar dark clouds have the lowest temperature in the Milky Way, about minus 263 degrees Celsius. It is difficult to identify hydrogen atoms and molecules in the dark clouds at this low temperature.

Chinese astronomers developed a new observation method, called HI Narrow Self-Absorption. By using this method and the radio telescopes at the Arecibo Observatory and the Five College Radio Astronomical Observatory in the United States, as well as the European Hershel Space Observatory, the Chinese research team discovered dark cloud B227, which has an outer shell of atomic hydrogen, but a core dominated by molecular hydrogen.

Our analysis showed the dark cloud is about 6 million years old; its still a baby. A new sun will be born inside that cloud, said Li.

Tens of thousands of interstellar dark clouds have been found previously, but this was the first time we got a look at a molecular cloud when its born, Li said.

Scientists are still unclear how long it will take for atomic hydrogen to become molecular hydrogen in a dark cloud. Its estimated it could take about 10 million years to form a sun in a molecular cloud, according to the classical model. But some scientists believe it only takes about one million years.

Our measurement this time supports the classical model, said Li.

The discovery made Li very confident of finding the birthplaces of new suns with FAST in the future.

The high sensitivity of FAST and its advantage in sky coverage will enable us to study the molecular clouds in the Milky Way, as well as in the Andromeda Galaxy, adjacent to our galaxy, Li said.

Only after hydrogen molecules were formed in the universe did complex chemical processes take place, forming complex organic molecules. It seems that amino acids, the components of life, can be easily formed under astrochemical conditions. It is possible that amino acids will be found in space in the next few years, he said.

We also plan to cooperate with the Milky Way Image Scroll Project of the Purple Mountain Observatory to catch the dark clouds at birth, and to study how many new suns will be born in our galaxy, said Li.

FAST, the worlds most sensitive radio telescope, located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in southwestern Chinas Guizhou Province, was completed in September 2016 and is due to start regular operations in September this year.

The performance of the telescope during commissioning is beyond imagination, said Li.

FAST will also be used for molecular observations related to the origin of space life, said Li.

By YuJianbin (Peoples Daily)13:18, June 24, 2019

China Space Station is set to welcome on board nine international scientific projects from 17 countries covering a wide range of research areas, the China Manned Space Agency and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) announced recently.

The projects include space astronomy, space life sciences and biotechnology, space medicine, physics and applied new technologies. They will be carried out on the space station which is expected to be put into use around 2022.

The selection of these projects and the preparation of future cooperation plans mark that the international cooperation of China Space Station has entered a new stage.

They also echo with the proposal of strengthening outer space governance and cooperation in the international community鈥檚 joint effort to build a shared future in space exploration put forward at the 50th anniversary of the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space held last year.

Building a space station is a difficult task that involves huge risks and requires enormous investment. After completed, the station will become a home for astronauts as well as a laboratory for scientific research.

The first-class space experiment platform will provide opportunities for scientists to achieve major breakthroughs. As China has announced, the independently built space station will provide a place for scientists both from China and around the world to conduct scientific research.

The generosity has vividly demonstrated China鈥檚 commitment to win-win cooperation with global partners, and fully reflected the country鈥檚 adherence to openness and inclusiveness, and its determination to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of UNOOSA, said China鈥檚 opening up of the space station to the world is a good example of its will to enhance international cooperation in space missions.

China always sticks to the principle of shared space exploration and takes concrete efforts to practice the concept. Indeed, space belongs to all mankind, and peaceful use of space is a principle that all countries should uphold.

From the development and launch of rockets, spacecraft, space stations and the training of astronauts, the construction of space station reflects the comprehensive aerospace strength of a country, which comes from decades of experience accumulation and investment.

By opening up its space station to the world, China will effectively promote international cooperation in manned space missions, and allow more countries to participate in manned space technology research and bridge the gap for countries that lack access to space exploration.

On the other hand, scientific experiments conducted by scientists from across the world on the Chinese space station will further promote space exploration and international cooperation, and allow countries to better play their strengths so as to work together to deliver fruitful scientific results that benefit all mankind. Undoubtedly, this is the true meaning of sharing space.

China鈥檚 opening up of the space station to the world is a practice of the idea of building a human community with shared destiny, and echoes with the dream of human beings to explore the unknown and go to deep space.

From each of us to the entire earth civilization, we have the curiosity and yearning for exploring space. The opening up of the space station allows scientists from different countries, different nationalities and different cultural backgrounds to explore the outer space.

This spirit of oneness is as indispensable as mankind鈥檚 future exploration of Mars and more remote planets, in that it will unite people together to explore the unknown sea of stars through jointly facing challenges and risks.

Fly with China Space Station, as it will become a magnificent spot in space and witness the human exploration of the universe with wisdom and courage.

(Xinhua)15:34, June 24, 2019

GUANGZHOU, June 24 (Xinhua) — The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has employed a talking robot to aid the rehabilitation of substance users through human-machine counseling.

While robots elsewhere are made to blur the line between humans and machines, the robot in the capital of Guangdong Province boasts a special appeal to addicts who find it embarrassing to talk to human community workers.

The Tianche No. E, which looks like a cubical Baymax, on Saturday started its tenure at a community rehab center in Nansha District.

Aided by artificial intelligence algorithms and big data, the machine offers individual counseling, psychological evaluation and a reminder of urine tests.

It is co-developed by the districts narcotics control commission and a Chinese tech firm to streamline the rehab service, according to the commission.

After swiping an ID card and undergoing facial recognition, a user can start counseling, an important part of the follow-up care after drug addiction treatment, with the robot, which generates a report afterward.

Traditional counseling may have problems like repetitive questioning, complicated process of archiving and a lack of analysis, said Yang Qingqiu, deputy commander of the district anti-drug brigade, who hailed the Tianche No. E for reducing 80 percent of their paperwork.

Meanwhile, a former drug addict said that he felt better to talk with the robot on questions that he found it hard to answer when facing officials and community workers.

The commission said they have plans to utilize the same robot model at more community rehab centers in the district.

(Xinhua)09:24, June 25, 2019

China sends a new satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province on June 25, 2019. [Photo: huanqiu.com]

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) — China sent a new satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province at 2:09 a.m. Tuesday.

Launched on a Long March-3B carrier rocket, the satellite was sent to the inclined geosynchronous earth orbit. It is the 46th satellite of the BDS satellite family and the 21st satellite of the BDS-3 system.

The design of the BDS constellation is unique, including medium earth orbit (MEO), geostationary earth orbit (GEO) and inclined geosynchronous earth orbit (IGEO) satellites.

So far, there are already 18 MEO BDS-3 satellites, one GEO BDS-3 satellite, and two IGEO BDS-3 satellites sent into space.

After in-orbit tests, the new satellite will work with those BDS satellites already in orbit to improve the coverage and positioning accuracy of the system.

The new satellite and the carrier rocket were developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The launch was the 307th mission for the Long March series of carrier rockets.

China began to construct its navigation system, named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, in the 1990s and started serving the Asia-Pacific Region in 2012.

The positioning accuracy of the system reached 10 meters globally and five meters in the Asia-Pacific Region as the system started to provide global service at the end of last year, according to Yang Changfeng, chief designer of BDS.

China planned to send 10 BDS satellites into space this year. The launches will help complete the BDS global network by 2020.

The system has been applied in many industries including transport, maritime affairs, electricity, civil affairs, meteorology, fishery, surveying and mapping, mining and public security.

The BDS has also been widely used around the world, like building construction in Kuwait, precision agriculture in Myanmar, land survey and mapping in Uganda and warehousing and logistics in Thailand.

To enable BDS to better serve the economic and social development in Belt and Road countries and regions, China has established BDS cooperation mechanisms with countries and organizations in South Asia, Central Asia, ASEAN, the Arab League and Africa, strengthening technical exchanges and personnel training, and building BDS overseas centers.

(Peoples Daily Online)13:19, June 25, 2019

China-Britain AI Summit 2019 held in London

The UK AI market has accelerated since 2010. In December 2017, the UK had a record 226 AI companies across all stages of development, with 2015 seeing the most significant number of new AI start-up entrants in the market, totaling 49. That鈥檚 nearly one a week.

The China-Britain AI Summit 2019 took place in London on 21 June, hoping to illuminate the AI landscape in China and the UK, to identify where the opportunities lie, where the key players reside and to cement global partnerships in the 21st century.

During the event, experts discussed topics including the China-UK AI investment framework, innovation and ethics, public safety, black box and jobs. Bo Ji, Dean of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, gave a speech about AI 2050 and changes in our lives.

Syrus Lohrasb, the founder of the China-Britain AI Summit, said, 鈥淲ith the top 4 out of 20 universities around the world, a deep tech pedigree and heritage associated with the British, the UK is perfectly poised to welcome and nurture new research and innovation labs. On the flipside, China and innovation go hand in hand. We are witnessing great government support on both sides. 鈥?(Tianxing Bai)

(Xinhua)16:35, June 25, 2019

WASHINGTON, June 25 (Xinhua) — The U.S. private space company SpaceX launched its rocket Falcon Heavy on Tuesday carrying 24 satellites into three different orbits in the most difficult ever mission.

The Falcon Heavy, the worlds most powerful operational rocket, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in the U.S. state of Florida at 2:30 a.m. American Eastern Time (0630 GMT). This is Falcon Heavys third launch and its first nighttime launch.

The mission, dubbed STP-2 for the Department of Defenses Space Test Program-2, is one of the most challenging launches in SpaceX history, owing to four separate upper-stage engine burns, three separate deployment orbits and a total mission duration of over six hours, according to SpaceX.

The spacecraft deployments began about 12 minutes after liftoff, the company said. The deployments are expected to last more than three hours.

The rocket also reused the recovered side boosters from the last Falcon Heavy launch in April, according to SpaceX. Side boosters of the reusable rocket had been recovered nearly nine minutes after the liftoff, but its center core stage landing seemingly failed afterwards, according to the live broadcast. Enditem

(Xinhua)14:18, June 26, 2019

SYDNEY, June 26 (Xinhua) — An international group of scientists have observed for the first time ever two galaxy clusters on the verge of colliding, an event which is predicted to create a 100-million-degree shockwave across millions of light years, researchers have revealed.

Galaxy clusters are the largest known objects bound by gravity, and as the name suggests consist of hundreds of galaxies, each containing billions of stars.

Due to their size, which measures in the millions of light years, the collision of two galaxy clusters takes around a billion years to complete, meaning the first stage when the clusters touch is a relatively short and rare moment to witness.

Merging galaxy clusters have been observed many times in various stages of the merger process but this is the first time we clearly observe one in which two large subclusters are just about to merge, Dr. Huib Intema from Western Australias Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy told Xinhua.

This observation provides the first clear view on what happens just before two large clusters merge, and allows us to study how the potential energy released in the merger is affecting and shaping the newly-to-be-formed larger cluster.

Computer simulations show that in the first moments before clusters touch, an immense shockwave of 100-million-degree gas is released, a theory which has been predicted but evidence of which is only now being revealed.

X-ray and radio images of these clusters show the first clear evidence for this type of merger shock, lead author Liyi Gu from Japans RIKEN research institute said.

The shock created a hot belt region of 100-million-degree gas between the clusters, which is expected to extend up to, or even go beyond the boundary of the giant clusters.

Scientists intend to build up a collection of snapshots documenting the clusters progress to increase understanding of collisions.

(Xinhua)08:53, June 27, 2019

OSAKA, Japan, June 26 (Xinhua) — While the rhetoric from leading economies on environmental issues has lost no emphasis as evidenced at a recent meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) environment and energy ministers, Japan and China, for their parts, have been busy together getting hands on.

With the worlds eyes now focusing on the G20 summit from Friday in Osaka, western Japan, and in terms of environmental dialogue if and how the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change will affect proceedings, the worlds second and third largest economies have been proactively and cooperatively addressing the global problem.

Both Japan and China, as regional and global powerhouses of technology and innovation, have made great strides to tackle climate change with warming bilateral ties and combined high-tech know-how showing some very promising shared prospects looking ahead.

China, for its part, has established itself as a predominant global player on climate action, taking a vast array of steps to promote clean energy, such as remodeling its grid to source significant amounts of energy from solar and wind technology and establishing itself as a market leader in solar photovoltaics, batteries and electric vehicles (EVs).

Japan, while playing catch-up to some extent, has ramped up its pledges recently to reduce emissions of domestic greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050, with the Tokyo Metropolitan government saying it plans to reduce emissions in the capital to effectively zero by 2025.

In part, to achieve this, it will significantly reduce the amount of emissions from incinerating plastic waste by 2030, with plans laid down to reduce the burning of plastic waste by 40 percent.

Japan has pledged to lead increased dialogue and joint global action on this and other hot-button climate issues at the G20 summit, to be chaired by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Japanese bellwether firms are getting onboard and looking to their closest neighbors to jointly drive the mission forwards.

Toyota, Japans biggest automaker and pioneer in 1997 of the now ubiquitous full hybrid electric vehicle, has joined forces with two equally trailblazing Chinese battery producers.

In what industry insiders here hope will be the many of such eco-tech tie-ups between Japanese and Chinese firms, Toyota has tapped the expertise of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) and BYD Co.

CATL, an eight-year-old company whose technological repertoire far exceeds its age, has already partnered with other Japanese automakers, including Honda Motor Co. and Nissan, and has signed a deal with Volvo Car Group.

Known for specializing in battery management systems, as well as the production of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems, CATL has become the worlds largest battery supplier since it knocked Japans Panasonic off the top spot in terms of sales in 2017.

BYDs longevity, meanwhile, having been established in 1995, and its depth of expertise in providing zero-emission energy solutions, coupled with its vision of building entire zero-emission ecosystems, make it a perfect partner for Toyota, which shares the Chinese firms vision of a sustainable future through electrification, auto experts attest.

On Toyotas need for the expertise from Chinese partners such as CATL and BYD, Executive Vice President Shigeki Terashi said that cooperating on the development of base technologies is crucial to success in the EV market.

We will need to work with other manufacturers until the market grows to a certain scale, Terashi said, adding that Toyota plans to build a new production system to address the growing demand for EVs.

The Japanese automaker itself is targeting sales of more than 5.5 million electrified vehicles a year including hybrid models by 2025, five years earlier than previously scheduled, with part of its plan including the mass production of proprietary EVs in China, which is well on its way to becoming the worlds largest market for EVs.

BYD is also set to boost sales of its electric buses in Japan, which are already popular in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa and in Kyoto City.

The Shenzhen-based company, which has a global reach boasting sales of over 50,000 electric buses in more than 50 countries and regions, as well as 17,000 units sold domestically, said it began receiving orders in March in Japan for its J6 model of electric bus.

Shinsaku Hanada, executive vice president of BYD Japan Co., said that the company is aiming to shift 1,000 units of its seven-meter-long electric bus by 2024.

Per unit, the e-buses currently have a pretax price tag of 19.5 million yen (181,000 U.S. dollars) but this could be vastly reduced, by as much as one third, Hanada said, as the environmentally-friendly vehicles will likely be eligible for a subsidy program backed by Japans Transport Ministry.

The J6 model, with a capacity to seat up to 31 people and on just a three-hour charge can run more than 200 km, bettering its Japanese competitors, has been designed specifically for the Japanese market, Hanada said.

The new model, an upgrade of its predecessor the K6, has an aluminum chassis to make it lighter and able to run further per charge.

The buses are quickly gaining popularity in Japan, with 23 sold already and many more likely to follow.

Currently they are operational in Okinawa Prefecture in Japans south and in Kyoto in western Japan, but hopes are high the eco-friendly e-buses will find their way to the roads of major Japanese metropolises and help fight congestion while helping Japan to lower its emissions from vehicles.

We would like to facilitate the use of our e-buses for local communities, Hanada said, adding that in Oze National Park in northeastern Japan, the firms e-buses will also become operational from this summer.

As the two nations set about slowing the growth of their respective carbon footprints, businesses-to-business collaborations and tie-ups between the two countries are setting a new blueprint for major economies through the sharing and utilization of innovative and eco-technology. The partnership can not only benefit individual economies, but support regional growth and both localized and global environmental action.