Astrophysics

"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" was Neil Armstrong's famous phrase when he first stepped on the surface of the Moon. The phrase served to crown one of the greatest feats carried out by the human species whose 50th anniversary is celebrated this year.

Space Apps Challenge is an annual global contest where scientists and innovators from across the world compete to solve challenges facing the aerospace industry proposed by NASA. In 2016, I was one of the scientists that won this prize thanks to an algorithm capable of detecting and classifying Near Earth Objects, or NEOs. Today, I work as a data scientist at BBVA, where I develop fraud detection models. This is my story.

Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity forever changed the way we understand space and time. But the German genius who was the centerpiece of a conference organized by the BBVA Foundation, “Explore Einstein's universe,” also left his mark on hundreds of technologies that we use daily: from Google Maps to solar panels, from self-lighting street lamps to laser beams. Our lives would be very different if Einstein hadn't been born.

The year the world says good bye to Stephen Hawking, one of the foremost authorities on black holes, might also be the year that one these massive cosmic voids is seen for the first time. Eight radio telescopes around the world have been linked up to take the first photograph of the black hole that sits in the center of our galaxy.

Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist and one of the world's most brilliant scientific minds died at 76, as confirmed by a statement made by his family. The genius of astrophysics suffered from ALS, a degenerative disease, from the time he was 21 years old, thus exceeding life expectancy predictions. Since 2005 he was only able to communicate by means of a speech synthesizer.

The Frontiers of Knowledge Awards presented by the BBVA Foundation every year to recognize scientists and creators, who with their work, contribute to push the limits of human knowledge, and improve the lives of millions of people.

We know there are planets of a size similar to the Earth and at a distance from their sun that make them inhabitable. It´s also possible that there are vestiges of life on Mars, in the ice-covered oceans covered of Europa - a satellite of Jupiter - or on Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn. Sending spaceships manned by robots to study the solar system, recreating the conditions of life on Mars inside a mine, or trying to reproduce a living organism in a laboratory – as Dan Brown relates in his latest bestseller – are some of the scientific experiments that are now being performed to solve the enigma of the origin of life.

Since the universe was formed, matter and dark energy have waged a battle of epic proportions. The astrophysicist Catherine Heymans explained it this way at the BBVA Foundation: "The gravity of dark matter tries to keep everything together, but its evil sister, dark energy, undoes its work and ensures that our universe expands more rapidly every day".

The Sombrero Galaxy presents a mystery to astronomers, who haven’t been able to explain all the details of this intriguing formation. Rings of dust hold bright young stars and right in the middle of the impressive sombrero is a giant black hole. The 50 year-old light from this galaxy, which is lost in the Virgo constellation, reaches Earth thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, which turns 27 years old today.

Their survival was one of the greatest achievements in American flight of the 20th Century.  Their mission has been called “the most successful space failure in history.” The Apollo 13 space mission was launched 47 years ago today, on April 11th, 1970. Its crew didn´t know then what their destiny would be, the dangers they would face, or how famous that phrase would become, as it was broadcast and translated – erroneously – around the world. There was even a movie made about their story.

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas”. This is one of the most famous quotes from renowned scientist Marie Curie. IT was, precisely, her interest in the world that led her to become the first woman to ever win a Nobel prize, at a time when women were rarely allowed to pursue University studies, at least in Poland.

Respected Spanish scientist Juan Ignacio Cirac believes that quantum computing could be a reality in 10 year's time. A super machine capable of performing calculations at breakneck speeds that will open uncharted territories in matters such as encryption.

The UN has declared February 11th the International Day of Women and Girls in Science to promote female scientists and engage women in engineering, research, mathematics and technology. In celebration of this day, BBVA explains its passion for numbers in hopes of inspiring new generations.

David Cox and Bradley Efron’s work has proven indispensable for medicine, astrophysics, genomics or any field of knowledge that depends on data analysis. The discovery of the Higgs boson or cancer and AIDS research efforts owe a lot to the two mathematicians honored by the BBVA Foundation.

Gravitational waves have been the most-talked-about scientific discovery of the year that is about to conclude. David Reitze, the physician that broke the news to the world, describes it as an achievement that can be compared to measuring the distance from our Sun to the nearest star with a margin of error under a human hair’s breadth.

Dark matter is not black. It is, actually, invisible. It is also everywhere – it is estimated to account for 27% of the universe’s total mass-energy density – but we cannot see it because it is too cold and does not emit any radiation. It is completely different from anything we know. And to find it, an invisible light is needed: Cherenkov’s radiation. It is no wonder that the telescopes trying to detect it are called MAGIC.

Apollo 11 was a milestone for solving complex problems. Hence the name moonshots: projects that propose radical ideas for tackling major problems by using futuristic technology. Their capacity for innovation has just started.

For Chileans, stars have become a valuable natural resource, capable of attracting millions in investments in the shape of the most advanced astronomical observatories, which have populated the arid Atacama desert landscape little by little. Thanks to them, scientists from across the world can enlighten humanity with their discoveries about galaxies, exoplanets and different interstellar events.

Physicists Stephen Hawking and Viatcheslav Mukhanov have been distinguished with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences for discovering that quantum fluctuations triggered the formation of galaxies formed during the first phase of the evolution of the Universe. The jury underscored that this insight, now borne out by space telescope observations, is a fundamental result in cosmology.