It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
School-bus-sized chunk of SpaceX rocket believed to have crashed into the Moon
A school-bus-sized piece of a SpaceX rocket is believed to have smashed into the Moon on Wednesday, an unintentional collision that poses no danger to Earth but will leave behind a lunar crater.
A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year was expected to have smashed into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning, though the impact was unlikely to be confirmed for at least several hours.
Weighing 4 metric tons (4,000 kg), the rocket body had been due to hit the moon around 2:35am ET (06:35 GMT), travelling at 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 kph), but none of the spacecraft orbiting the moon were expected to be in a position to capture images of the impact live.
The space junk would have kicked up a plume of lunar dust that would likely be illuminated by sunlight, but difficult to spot with the naked eye from Earth.
It was likely to be at least several hours before scientists would be able to confirm the crash by studying images from telescopes in the Americas, the BBC reported. The impact was unintentional, SpaceX said.
The rocket piece was expected to hit Einstein Crater on the moon's western limb, which is often difficult to see from Earth.
Cosmic forces nudged piece to Moon
Such stages typically fall back into Earth's atmosphere and burn up or plunge into the ocean after boosting the rocket's payload to a precise spot in orbit.
But because the January lunar lander mission required more thrust than missions closer to Earth, the rocket's second stage remained in space, floating aimlessly among thousands of other pieces of space junk that active satellites must steer clear of.
It was not until earlier this year that astronomers determined that the rocket stage, which had dumped its remaining fuel and could not be controlled, was on an orbital trajectory ending at the moon.
"What has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path toward the moon," Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX director of NASA science and Dragon programs, told reporters on Monday.
"This may be of some – probably minor – scientific interest, and we may learn some things from it," said Bill Gray, creator of widely used astronomy software who published a report on the stage's impact in April.
"It doesn't present any danger to anyone, though it does highlight a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware (space junk) is disposed of." Space junk impacts on the moon are rare.
A Chinese rocket stage crashed into the moon in March 2022 after completing a lunar test mission.
In 2009, NASA intentionally crashed a rocket stage into the moon to study the plume of lunar material kicked up by the impact. Several spacecraft intending to softly land on the moon in recent years have crashed instead.
Russia's nuclear-powered Luna-25 mission spun out of control and crashed in 2023.
Its small power source of plutonium-238 likely remains harmlessly on the lunar surface.
India's Chandrayaan-2 lander mission crashed in 2019. Israel's Beresheet lander crashed that same year.
Among the Israeli lander's payloads were tiny tardigrades, microscopic animals known for surviving radiation and other harsh environments and which may still be on the surface.
NASA intentionally crashed stages from its Saturn V moon rocket into the moon in the 1970s to study the impacts' seismic effects.
NASA and SpaceX are discussing ways to prevent future lunar impacts, Scheiman said.
The US space agency plans to build a lunar base and send routine astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning later this decade under its multibillion-dollar Artemis program. It would not want errant pieces of space junk impacting those assets.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Friday, August 07, 2026
AI before AI: The legacy of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics
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British mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics in the 1940s, may deserve a place alongside artificial intelligence founders Alan Turing and John von Neumann. FRANCE 24 revisits this overlooked visionary who was also one of the first to warn against the automation of society.
The story of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence almost always features British mathematician Alan Turing and his computing machine. John von Neumann is often presented as the mastermind behind programmable computers. Summer serie: AI before AI
Names from the Dartmouth group – such as John McCarthy or Marvin Minsky – are also sometimes cited as the “inventors” of artificial intelligence.
However, another figure is often overlooked or relegated to the category of second-rate pioneers: Norbert Wiener, the founding father of cybernetics in the 1940s.
ChatGPT, Claude and other AI chatbots can be regarded as the offspring of his ideas.
But it's uncertain whether Wiener – with his particular moral, political and scientific convictions – would claim any credit for these modern large language models. A young prodigy
Wiener was born on November 26, 1894, in Columbia, Missouri, into a family of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
His father Leo Wiener, a highly strict professor of Slavic languages of Lithuanian origin, would “behave somewhat like Pygmalion and attempt to mould his son in his own image", said Pierre Cassou-Noguès, a philosopher at Paris 8 University and author of a fictionalised account of the mathematician’s life.
"At least, that is how Wiener describes it in his autobiography,” he added.
Thus, Wiener became “a young scientific prodigy moulded by his father”, agreed Mathieu Triclot, a philosopher specialising in the history of technology at the Belfort-Montbéliard University of Technology.
He learned to read before the age of four, graduated from high school at 11, earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at 14 and completed his PhD in mathematics at Harvard at 18.
A few years later, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) appointed him as one of its youngest professors.
It was in this role that, after World War II, Wiener developed his ideas which would “have an impact on many fields related to artificial intelligence such as robotics, control engineering and multi-agent systems”, said Philippe Mathieu, an artificial intelligence specialist at the University of Lille.
Cybernetics studies “certain phenomena of control and information transmission in the same way in humans, in the animal kingdom and in the world of machines”, Cassou-Noguès said.
In other words, for Wiener and “cyberneticists”, it is possible to draw parallels between the way human and animal brains and machines process information. Cybernetics, a ‘super-science’ attracting the biggest names in AI
In practical terms, these principles inspired Wiener to work on a new kind of anti-aircraft defence system during World War II.
He aimed to create a system capable of adapting in real time to the movements of missiles or aircraft and of learning from its mistakes. These were the very first tentative steps towards what we would now call “machine learning”.
“The central theme of cybernetics is understanding how an entity adapts to its environment and to the information available. Intelligence is seen as the result of interactions between an entity [living or not] and its environment,” Mathieu said.
“Logic, mathematics and electrical engineering, information theory, brain research and psychology – a whole bundle of scientific disciplines influenced the events that led to AI," writes Rudolf Seising, who specialises in the history of science and technology at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
"In the first half of the 20th century, interdisciplinary considerations and, above all, transdisciplinary approaches to AI were mainly found under the umbrella of cybernetics, a ‘super science’.”
This “jack-of-all-trades” aspect of cybernetics may also explain why Wiener is less often seen as the “father of AI” than Turing or von Neumann, who had a more direct and immediate impact on the development of computer science.
But for Triclot, cybernetics’ “indirect influence” on AI is considerable.
A series of ten meetings known as the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics brought together scientists interested in Wiener’s ideas between 1946 and 1953.
Some of the biggest names in the history of AI, including von Neumann and Claude Shannon, took part and identified themselves with cybernetics at the time.
One of the founding members of the Macy Conferences was psychologist Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, “one of the central figures in the history of American computing”, Triclot said.
He later became the head of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Licklider "played a key role in the funding and development of the internet and also took an interest in human-computer interface technologies in the 1960s”, Triclot added.
At MIT, Wiener also supervised the work of Walter Pitts, a researcher and logician who was pivotal to the development of modern AI.
In the 1940s, Pitts laid the foundation for the first neural network model. Against the Manhattan Project
This work, which is rooted in cybernetics, is essential to understanding today’s large language models.
While cybernetics itself may now seem to be a relic of the past, it paved the way, alongside neural networks, for the emergence of the branch of AI known as “connectionism”, which lies at the heart of the rise of ChatGPT and other 21st-century AI systems.
Wiener not only provided an “intellectual cradle” for AI, but “he was also one of the first to warn of its dangers”, Cassou-Noguès said.
Known for his strong-willed character and notorious outbursts of anger, Wiener understood why certain areas of scientific research were dangerous. Consequently, he refused to take part in the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the first atomic bomb.
Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wiener even published a famous open letter in which he stated his intention to no longer publish research that could be misused for creating weapons of mass destruction.
Albert Einstein supported the move at the time.
But with cybernetics, "as early as 1948" Weiner also foresaw “the possibility of a fully or almost fully automated society – a development which, in his view, could just as easily lead humanity to a world free from the constraints of work or the social hell of mass unemployment,” Cassou-Noguès said.
Wiener concluded that he should continue his work in order to influence the direction research in the field was taking.
Often labelled as politically left-wing – US authorities suspected that he was sympathetic to the Soviet bloc during the Cold War – Wiener was thus one of the first to warn of the risk of social upheaval linked to the advent of machines.
In this sense, “cybernetics is a profoundly political endeavour, preoccupied with the fear of technological unemployment caused by machines that could replace workers”, Triclot said.
For him, it is “striking to read this as early as 1947”, a time when computers were still very rare.
But for Wiener, this risk would only materialise “if we fall into the trap of treating human beings inhumanely”, said Triclot.
In other words, according to Wiener, robots would only be able to replace humans if humans were reduced to having the status of robots by denying everything that distinguishes them from machines.
Although the term “cybernetics” seems to have fallen out of use, the ideas of its founder are relevant today, at a time when companies are citing the triumph of AI to justify layoffs. This article has been translated from the original in French.
For decades, humanoid robots belonged to the realm of science fiction. But today, they're one of Silicon Valley's hottest markets. According to consulting firm McKinsey, automation could transform up to 30 percent of all hours worked across the US economy by 2030. Dozens of companies are already developing robots that can interact with people and even help with everyday tasks. FRANCE 24's Pierrick Leurent and Valérie Defert report, with Wassim Cornet.
A Faint X-ray Flash Exposes a Dying Star's Missing Jet —a surprising discovery for the international team, which includes researchers from LMU.
A rare cosmic explosion has given astronomers an unprecedented look at a massive star in its final moments, revealing a missing link between ordinary stellar explosions, so-called supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts, the brightest and most powerful phenomena in the Universe.
The event, named EP260321a, was first detected by the Einstein Probe satellite as a brief flash of X-rays from a galaxy about 500 million light-years away. Scientists interpret the signal as a “shock breakout,” the moment when the shock wave from a star’s collapsing interior bursts through its surface and releases the first light of a supernova.
Shock breakouts are thought to occur in every massive star’s death, but they’re notoriously hard to catch. They last only a short time and shine brightest in X-rays. In the past two decades, astronomers have confidently identified just one other clear X-ray shock breakout, making EP260321a an exceptionally rare find.
The X-ray flash set off a worldwide observing campaign. Among the first to catch it was LMU’s 2.1-meter Fraunhofer Telescope at Wendelstein Observatory, which spotted a rapidly brightening supernova later named SN 2026gzf. Observations of how its light evolved showed it belonged to the class known as broad-lined Type Ic supernovae. This class of supernovae typically has material shooting out in a jet at nearly the speed of light, producing gamma-ray bursts.
“Stars die on a daily basis somewhere in the Universe. But it’s rare that something unusual happens close enough for our observations to reveal fundamentally new insights. EP260321a rang an alarm bell right away - an X-ray flash but no gamma-ray alert? A supernova in a nearby galaxy, embedded in a blue knot that had already been getting brighter for years? That’s not what is expected, and it set off a chase around the globe. Fortunately, we were well prepared for exactly this kind of opportunity with LMU’s observatories,” says LMU astrophysicist Daniel Gruen, who led the observations with Wendelstein and with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas.
Not a typical dying massive star
As it turned out, SN 2026gzf was not your typical dying massive star. Researchers were surprised to find no evidence of a gamma-ray burst or relativistic jet following the explosion. This is even more unexpected because the explosion itself was not weak at all. In fact, its characteristics match well with other supernovae that did produce gamma-ray bursts.
Brendan O’Connor, an astronomer and McWilliams Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and lead author of one of the papers presenting the analysis, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, combined the telescope data with observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) and the NRAO’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio observatory to reveal the full nature of the event.
“SN 2026gzf looks remarkably similar to other energetic supernovae that have been linked to gamma-ray bursts before. Yet multi-wavelength follow-up observations using the most sensitive facilities found no evidence of a jet or an afterglow that is typically seen in those events,” says O’Connor. “One possibility is that a jet was initially present, but ‘choked,’ either by the surface of the star or by material surrounding it.”
Another piece of the puzzle came from the spectra, the fingerprint of light emitted by the supernova and the stars in the galaxy around it. Using LMU’s share of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the team obtained an integral field spectrum, an image in which every pixel splits its light into a rainbow, revealing detailed information about its source. “What we found in the spectrum is that the star that exploded had been born from a cloud of pristine gas - mostly hydrogen, with only about 15% of the metals our Sun and local environment contain,” explains Malte Busmann, a graduate student at LMU and co-author of the study, adding, “Well those metals are being added right now. Just four days after the shock breakout, we’re already catching the first glimpses of metals forged by the dying star being flung outward in all directions.”
The site of the explosion is indeed one of the least metal-enriched environments known for this type of supernova. Low-metallicity environments are often thought to help massive stars retain the rotation needed to launch fast jets, yet SN 2026gzf produced no typical gamma-ray-burst jet. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope observations therefore show that low metallicity alone cannot determine whether a dying star successfully produces a gamma-ray burst.
"When a massive star forms from such almost pristine gas, we expect it to eject roughly half of its original mass before it eventually explodes. So this fits with the interpretation of the jet being choked by material surrounding the star" says Joachim Puls, expert on massive stars and their outflows at LMU.
With an exceptionally faint X-ray shock breakout, combined with the absence of the fast-moving jets that typically power gamma-ray bursts, EP260321a/SN 2026gzf acts as a unique bridge between ordinary, non-relativistic supernova shock breakouts and the far more extreme, relativistic explosions that generate gamma-ray bursts.
This discovery establishes that energetic broad-lined Type Ic supernovae do not always produce a gamma-ray burst, a bright relativistic shock breakout, and suggests that massive stars can die through a wider range of pathways than previously recognized.
A glimpse into the future of time-domain astronomy
Together with spectra obtained with CMU’s share in the Southern African Large Telescope and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, and images taken by the Dark Energy Camera and Rubin Observatory that LMU participates in, and the Zwicky Transient Facility, a high-fidelity picture of the event emerged. Additional late-time observations have been approved with the James Webb Space Telescope to further reveal the inner workings of the explosion, its geometry, and ejecta composition.
“This sequence of observations offers a glimpse into the future of time-domain astronomy. By coordinating large, repeated sky surveys with smaller, dedicated telescopes, we can learn so much more from the surprises the Universe has in store for us,” says Xander Hall, a graduate student at CMU and second author of the study.
Narrow jets of luminous matter may be emitted towards Earth from the nuclei of active galaxies, billions of light-years away. The galaxy then appears as a point source and is called a blazar. A Polish-German team of scientists has, for the first time, analysed the activity of one such blazar over a long period of time and instead of finding answers, they have been faced with an ever-increasing number of intriguing questions.
Distant, active galaxies that emit jets of matter at small angles towards Earth, known as blazars, present astronomers with numerous observational and interpretative challenges. Their immense distance and specific orientation, combined with the high variability of the emitted radiation – which, moreover, is generated across a very wide energy range – are the main reasons why understanding the phenomena responsible for the properties of blazars is particularly difficult. Are the current interpretations of the nature of these objects, based on short-term and rather sporadic observations, correct? A group of scientists from the University of Heidelberg and the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow set out to answer this question. The research carried out on the Polish side, funded by a grant from the National Agency for Academic Exchange, focused on the blazar PKS 2155-304, located one and a half billion light-years away. It is situated in the southern celestial hemisphere, in the background of the constellation Piscis Austrinus.
Hundreds of billions of galaxies have already been discovered within the observable Universe. Some of them have been found to produce vast amounts of electromagnetic radiation, probably as a result of violent processes occurring as matter falls into a central supermassive black hole. The activity of some such galaxies takes on a particularly spectacular form: jets – narrow streams of ionised, luminous matter – shoot out from the vicinity of the black hole’s poles, sometimes extending for as far as tens of millions of light-years. Astronomers refer to active galaxies with jets pointing towards Earth as blazars. Blazars generate radiation across a very wide energy range, from radio waves through the optical and ultraviolet regions to X-rays and gamma rays.
“The variability of blazars is a characteristic feature that has long been recognised. Blazars are capable of emitting radiation not only in different ways during different observations, but even within the same observation, when variations in some energy ranges may differ from those in others,” notes Dr. Alicja Wierzcholska (IFJ PAN), lead author of the long-term analyses of observations of the blazar PKS 2155-304.
Observations of blazars have been carried out for several decades, but it would be difficult to describe them as precise monitoring. In the case of such variable objects, it would be necessary to use numerous instruments capable of detecting electromagnetic radiation across virtually the entire energy spectrum, and ideally on a continuous basis, at least for selected objects. However, such observatories simply do not exist at present. The reality is therefore that individual blazars are usually observed every few months or years, as part of campaigns lasting no more than a few to a dozen or so days, and the data collected relate to their activity only within narrow energy ranges of radiation detected by a specific instrument.
The present analysis covered measurements taken over a much longer period – almost two decades. The data, which complemented one another in terms of energy ranges, were obtained from the US satellite observatories: the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (in the optical, ultraviolet and X-ray ranges) and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (in the gamma-ray range).
“The key conclusion from our analyses is that the currently most popular theoretical models, which assume that radiation is emitted within a single jet zone by a single population of electrons, can only describe the variability of our blazar over short time scales. However, something more complex is clearly happening in this object, which short observation campaigns are unable to capture,” says Dr. Wierzcholska.
An example? Intuition suggests that if the source of emission in the optical and X-ray ranges were the same population of electrons, changes in one part of the spectrum should be correlated with changes in the other, perhaps with a slight time delay. However, the analysed data failed to reveal any long-term correlation between events in different radiation ranges.
When blazars brighten rapidly in the X-ray range, the rule generally holds that the increase in brightness is more pronounced in the higher-energy part of the spectrum. In other words, during a flare, more hard X-ray photons are observed than during periods of low blazar activity. In the case of PKS 2155-304, this behaviour has not been observed over 20 years of monitoring. Such a correlation is visible for shorter observation periods, but it is of a different nature (the curves depicting changes in the distribution have different slopes). This fact suggests that slightly different physical mechanisms must be responsible for the course of each outburst of PKS 2155-304.
That was not the end of the surprises. The graphs showing the full energy spectrum of blazars have an interesting feature: they reveal two ‘peaks’ separated by an arched trough. The low-energy peak appears to be caused by electrons and the synchrotron radiation they emit, whilst there is no clear explanation for the high-energy peak. This may be the result of collisions between electrons and low-energy photons, leading to an increase in the photons’ energy (i.e. inverse Compton scattering), but it cannot be ruled out that it stems from phenomena involving hadrons – that is, quark aggregates such as protons or neutrons. However, in the case of two observations from 2012, something particularly strange appeared in the spectrum of PKS 2155-304: an additional, statistically significant dip.
“The presence of a new inflection in the blazar’s spectrum tells us that some additional physical mechanism must have been at work between the two observations – and this at a time when there was no outburst! Various theoretical considerations suggest that this mechanism was most likely hadronic in nature. This is extremely interesting, as theorists are increasingly arguing that neutrino production is possible in such situations,” explains Dr. Wierzcholska.
Neutrinos are particles with very small masses that fill the Universe in vast numbers. However, their presence is difficult to detect because they interact very weakly with ordinary matter. In the Earth’s environment, neutrinos produced during radioactive decays deep within the Earth, those arriving from the Sun, and high-energy neutrinos from deep space are observed. The origin of the latter is not entirely clear to astrophysicists. There are both theoretical and observational indications – in particular, the detection of neutrinos arriving from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 during a powerful outburst from this source – that it is blazars that may be responsible for the emission of cosmic neutrinos.
The computational part of the research described here was carried out with the support of the Cyfronet AGH Academic Computing Centre in Cracow.
The Henryk Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics (IFJ PAN) is currently one of the largest research institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A wide range of research carried out at IFJ PAN covers basic and applied studies, from particle physics and astrophysics, through hadron physics, high-, medium-, and low-energy nuclear physics, condensed matter physics (including materials engineering), to various applications of nuclear physics in interdisciplinary research, covering medical physics, dosimetry, radiation and environmental biology, environmental protection, and other related disciplines. The average yearly publication output of IFJ PAN includes over 600 scientific papers in high-impact international journals. Each year the Institute hosts about 20 international and national scientific conferences. One of the most important establishments of the Institute is the Bronowice Cyclotron Centre (CCB), which is an infrastructure unique in Central Europe, serving as a clinical and research centre in the field of medical and nuclear physics. In addition, IFJ PAN runs four accredited research and measurement laboratories. IFJ PAN is a member of the Marian Smoluchowski Kraków Research Consortium: “Matter-Energy-Future”, which in 2012-2017 enjoyed the status of the Leading National Research Centre (KNOW) in physics. In 2017, the European Commission granted the Institute the HR Excellence in Research award. As a result of the categorization of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Institute has been classified into the A+ category (the highest scientific category in Poland) in the field of physical sciences.
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS:
“20 years of monitoring: PKS 2155-304 and PKS 1510-089 in the eyes of Swift and Fermi. I. The case of PKS 2155-304”
A. Wierzcholska, M. Zacharias
Journal of High Energy Astrophysics 2026, 54, 100688
A panel discussion during the Dark and Quiet Skies session at the 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly. At the podium is Roberto Ragazzoni, INAF President. The rest of the panel can be seen behind him: Pascale Ehrenfreund (COSPAR President), Willy Benz (IAU President), Carole Mundell (ESA), Massimo Comparini (Leonardo) and Richard Anthony D’Souza (Vat. Observatory).
The 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly brought together experts from astronomy, the satellite industry, policy and law to examine one of the most important challenges arising from the rapid growth of activities in space: how to preserve dark and quiet skies while enabling satellite systems to continue delivering valuable services to society. The meeting was chaired by Marco Tavani.
By bringing together these different experts, the session provided an opportunity to consider the issue from scientific, technical, operational and regulatory perspectives. Panellists explored the progress already being made, the limitations of current approaches and the gaps to be addressed to ensure that the benefits of satellite technology can be realised without unnecessarily compromising astronomical observations or the wider value of the night sky.
In “Dark and Quiet Skies”, “dark” refers primarily to the effects of artificial light on optical astronomy, while “quiet” refers to interference affecting observations at radio frequencies. Together, optical and radio astronomy allow scientists to investigate some of humanity’s most fundamental questions like: How did the Universe develop into what we see today? What is our place within it? And could life exist elsewhere?
Satellites can affect both types of observation. In the optical domain, sunlight reflected from satellites and their components can leave bright trails across astronomical images or interfere with sensitive measurements. At radio frequencies, satellites may affect observations through their intended communication signals, unwanted emissions outside their assigned frequency bands, or unintended electromagnetic radiation generated by onboard electronic systems.
The session also recognised that these concerns form part of a broader discussion about the environmental and societal effects of activity in near-Earth space. Light pollution, possible atmospheric effects and the increasing risk of collisions in orbit are related challenges, although they were not the principal focus of the panel.
Some aspects of radio-frequency interference fall within the mandate of the International Telecommunication Union, which develops the international regulatory framework for the use of the radio-frequency spectrum. The session considered this work alongside the broader role of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, or COPUOS, which addresses the peaceful uses of outer space and will continue to consider Dark and Quiet Skies under a dedicated agenda item over the next three years. The discussion highlighted the need for coordination between technical regulation and the wider consideration of how space activities can develop sustainably while preserving astronomy and the night sky.
Protecting dark and quiet skies is not solely a scientific concern. Naturally dark skies have cultural, educational and environmental value. Many species use natural patterns of light and darkness to navigate, reproduce or regulate their behaviour, while the night sky has inspired human curiosity, culture and scientific discovery throughout history.
This was the first time that Dark and Quiet Skies had been the subject of a dedicated discussion at a COSPAR Scientific Assembly. The strong interest in the session highlighted the role that COSPAR, with its broad international membership and multidisciplinary scientific expertise, can play in addressing this pressing issue and helping to develop solutions that balance the benefits of space activities with the protection of astronomy and the night sky. COSPAR will establish a dedicated Task Group on this topic to support the current initiatives.
We thank the esteemed speakers and panel for contributing to the wide-ranging and comprehensive discussion:
COSPAR 2026 is an in-person only event. Media accreditation for journalists, science communicators, freelancers and bloggers provides complimentary registration. All applications are subject to review based on the applicant’s professional media or communication output.
Opportunities for interviews with selected speakers, including space agency representatives, mission scientists and COSPAR leadership, may be arranged in advance and are subject to availability.
The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) is an international scientific organization established in 1958, under the International Science Council (ISC). Its mission is to promote cooperation in space research, with an emphasis on the exchange of scientific results, information, and the development of global partnerships across disciplines for the benefit of all.
Through its scientific Commissions, Panels and Task Groups, COSPAR covers a wide range of space science fields, including Earth observation, planetary protection, astrophysics, and space life sciences and is a trusted advisor to the United Nations on critical issues in space research. It plays a key role in fostering collaboration between the global scientific community, space agencies, industry, and emerging space nations. Through specialized capacity building workshops, it supports the growth of space science expertise worldwide. Its biennial event, the COSPAR Scientific Assembly, brings together thousands ofresearchers from around the world, serving as a major platform for knowledge exchange and international dialogue.
A panel discussion during the Dark and Quiet Skies session at the 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly. At the podium is Willy Benz, IAU President. The rest of the panel can be seen behind him: Moderator, Catherine Cesarsky (COSPAR Vice-President), and panelists Pascale Ehrenfreund (COSPAR President), Roberto Ragazzoni (INAF President), Carole Mundell (ESA), Massimo Comparini (Leonardo) and Richard Anthony D’Souza (Vat. Observatory).
COSPAR Vice-President Catherine Cesarsky speaks on Dark and Quiet Skies at the 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly.
COSPAR President Pascale Ehrenfreund speaks on Dark and Quiet Skies at the 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly.
