Vyacheslav Temkin, advisor to the General Director of EKIPO, predicts the emergence of space pirates in the next ten years.
The expert indicated in an interview with the Russian Novosti News Agency that the increase in the volume of space debris associated with the increase in the number of satellites in space will not be the only problem associated with the use of near-Earth space during the next ten years. Because in addition to them, there will be space hackers who will steal or corrupt data transmitted via satellite.
He says: “Competition in space will become very intense in 10 years. This will lead to an open conflict of interests not between companies and institutions, but between countries. Space pirates will emerge, and they will be de facto controlled by the leadership of these countries. In addition, space debris will increase dramatically.” "faster than it will be eliminated."
According to him, hacking operations will include causing interference, disabling devices and equipment or the satellites themselves, stealing data, or distorting transmitted information or commands. Satellites in low orbits will be more susceptible to this effect. Therefore, to secure the system, the “main” devices responsible for memory and group control must be placed in higher orbits.
According to the expert, low space is a general term used to describe a large group of heights above the Earth's surface. According to him, this is not sufficiently studied, which gives Russia an opportunity to occupy a leading position in the world. Pointing out that this will be possible through timely support of technological projects, because the tasks of Earth observation and organizing communications and the Internet at low altitudes can be solved efficiently and economically.
He says: “I believe that the leading projects currently are creating light media to launch a group of satellites from different orbits unified in a common system controlled by artificial intelligence. For example, our company is working on a project with high implementation capabilities to control altitudes ranging between 150 and 200 kilometers, and in order to By connecting constellations of satellites in lower and higher orbits, we propose to create the most advanced and efficient system in the world, capable of quickly reconfiguring to solve new problems, including under the control of artificial intelligence.
“We were wrong.” The ozone hole “shocks” scientists
With an undersea volcano last year pumping huge amounts of water into the atmosphere, scientists expected the ozone hole in Antarctica to become large this fall. But that didn't happen.
According to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year's ozone hole was about the average size over the past 20 years, and even slightly smaller than in 2022.
From September to mid-October, the ozone hole this year averaged 23.1 million square kilometers (8.9 million square miles), the 16th largest since satellites began tracking in 1979. This year it peaked at 26 million One square kilometer (10 million square miles), roughly the size of North America.
When ozone, made up of three oxygen atoms, is 8 to 50 kilometers (5 to 30 miles) high in the atmosphere, it protects the Earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer, cataracts, and can even cause... Harm to crops.
Because of the chemicals in aerosol sprays and refrigerants that produce ozone-consuming chemicals, the ground's ozone layer began a few decades ago to weaken, even forming a large hole over Antarctica during September and October.
“That's massive in terms of scale,” said Paul Newman, NASA's ozone research leader and head of the Earth Sciences Division at Goddard Flight Center. "That's very bad for the people who have to live in that region in the extreme south of South America. But it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be." Believe".
When the Honga Tonga volcano released millions of tons of water into the Southern Hemisphere's atmosphere in January 2022, scientists believed that the water, 10% more than usual, would eventually be bad for the ozone layer.
This is because liquid water in the upper atmosphere provides a place for chlorine and bromine to stay and then eats away at the ozone layer, making the annual hole larger, Newman explained. So scientists and computer models are predicting a bad ozone season this year.
“We were wrong,” Newman said, noting that scientists will now have to figure out where their understanding and computer simulations went wrong. He believes the water froze higher and earlier, leaving less clouds and liquid water to stabilize the chemicals that consume ozone.
Local weather conditions also cause differences in the amount of ozone.
It is noteworthy that the ozone hole reached its largest levels in 2000, reaching about 29.9 million square kilometers (11.6 million square miles), according to NASA data.
A new approach to controlling 'liquid light'
Physicists from Russia and Europe have demonstrated their ability to control "liquid light."
The Russian Skoltech University said in a statement that this is a qualitative leap towards developing non-traditional computing technologies.
Russian and European physicists have devised a method that allows flexible control of the energetic properties of “liquid light,” an exotic quantum substance that has the properties of light and matter, as well as the density of its particles and other specifications, bringing scientists closer to creating a new class of high-speed electronics. The study was published in this regard in the journal Physical Review Letters.
The Skoltech press service said that a group of physicists were able to achieve a qualitative leap in the path of creating non-classical computing techniques, achieving significant progress in solving the problem of spatial manipulation and energy management of “liquid light” at closed room temperature. This development opens a new door in the study of all high-speed optical logic devices.
It is noteworthy that quantum liquid light is a stream of polaritons, acting as quasiparticles, that excite the medium (the exciton) and the light particle (the photon). The presence of a physical component provides an opportunity to control the “optical fluid.”
In the past, physicists believed that such elements could only exist in conditions of temperatures close to absolute zero, but Russian and foreign scientists were able several years ago to prove that they could also arise at room temperature.
A team of scientists led by Pavlos Lagoudakis, a professor at Scholtech University, has developed a technology that allows the manipulation of the quantum properties and position of "liquid light" in a relatively simple way using a layer of polymer containing fluorine. It interacts with light in a way that is completely unlike a resonator, as an optical structure within which “liquid light” is trapped.
Influencing this layer with laser beams of different colors makes it possible to control the optical properties of the medium in which “liquid light” is generated at room temperature, which gives scientists the ability to control the flexibility, speed, density of the material, its structure, and its energy properties using only photons. This is crucial for the development of polariton computing devices based on liquid light.
This breakthrough opens a new era of research into organic polaritons platforms that will form a solid foundation for room-temperature “liquid light” computing. Professor Pavlos Lagoudakis said: “We will now be able to fully exploit the capabilities of amazing quasiparticles such as polaritons.”
The press service of Skoltech University quoted Anton Putintsev, a Russian researcher at the university, as saying:
“The future is being born right before our eyes,” he said.