Who will analyse the images? (Image: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis)
Long nights spent peering into the cosmos are over, for humans at least. Artificial intelligence will take charge of the planet’s greatest telescopes
IN October 1923, after nights of meticulous observations with the 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson near Pasadena, California, Edwin Hubble noticed three new specks of light in one photograph of the Andromeda nebula that he marked with N for nova.
Hubble’s specks were the first step towards his discovery that the universe was expanding. When he compared his Andromeda photograph with earlier images, he crossed out one N and wrote VAR! next to it. It…
