Curiosity has always been a distinct quality in humans. It has driven mankind into the age of exploration and innovation. However, the existence of the universe has always fascinated us. There have been many great thinkers in the past who have contributed to our understanding of the universe. This curiosity-driven exploration has led to an unprecedented advancement in technology. In simple words, we have started sending various instruments into space, one of which is a telescope with the size of a school bus! This kind of space race is different compared to what the world saw during the advent of space technology. Back then, various nations were working towards getting their astronauts into space. However, there has been a twist in this little space story. Now, with each nation’s every attempt to cross newer farther frontiers in space, comes larger and larger volumes of data. With the current technology being used, the data size will end up going beyond Zettabytes (²⁷⁰ bytes)! The challenge is the collection, organisation and interpretation of this data and the timely delivery of focused information and knowledge in a simple and understandable format.
Certainly, the instruments used to record this data are continuously evolving to become incredibly advanced. But the fact remains that there is more information received than the capacity of the machines that have to interpret. It is not clear whether supercomputers currently in existence, as equipped and formidable as they are, would be able to effectively process and interpret this data.
In recent times, Big Data has become the primary underlying principle for giving momentum to space research. This has enabled increased involvement of data mining technology. Data correlation and fast data processing can provide mission-critical insights that can lead to a greater rate of scientific discovery.
For example, The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, with a surface of over one million square meters. Many of the world’s finest scientists, engineers and policymakers, from around 100 organizations, are involved in the design and development of the SKA. It’s expected to survey the entire sky much faster and with greater detail than any system in existence today.
The SKA project is the very definition of big data. The project team predicts that it will generate up to 700 terabytes of data per second. That is almost the same amount of data transmitted through the internet every two days. This poses a unique challenge to both physicists and data scientists to process this much information and find conclusions similar to needles in a haystack.
A very famous example that can be sighted is the generation of the black hole image. The observations taken by researchers generated data at a rate of 64 gigabits per second, which is about 1,000 times faster than our home internet connection!
So much data was collected by Event Horizon Telescope that it had to be shipped to the MIT Haystack Observatory physically, on half a ton of hard drives.
Since astronomical signals reach the radio telescopes at slightly different rates, the researchers had to figure out a way for the calculations to be accurate, so that visual information could be extracted. It was through the algorithm they made which reconstructed and refined the original images from the given vast collection of numbers. And Eureka! the photograph of the century was finally captured. Humanity finally got a glimpse of the most bizarre object in the universe.
It is quite fascinating to discover facts based on the data we receive from observations. This kind of research is quite synonymous to the act of digging the ground to find a buried treasure. One would feel quite overwhelmed by the number of calculations and analysis that takes place. However, without this hard work, we would be in oblivion about what is out there, beyond our world. Our curiosity is the main reason that drives us to explore and ultimately bring us closer and closer to answering the most fundamental questions about our place in the universe, along with its mysterious existence.
With the advent of Machine Learning and other AI-related data analysis techniques, the scientists are hopeful to make great strides for the years to come. Still, there is a lot of scope for improvement in the field of space research. As Margaret Hamilton rightly said, after the success of Apollo 8 mission, “Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world. There was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.”
