If the collective imagination associates the lunar conquest with the United States with, among others, the famous Apollo 11 mission of 1969, the USSR had nevertheless succeeded in the very first moon landing thanks to its Luna 9 probe.
More than three years before Neil Armstrong’s “small step”, Luna 9 landed on the Moon on February 3, 1966, allowing the whole world to obtain the very first photos from the surface of our natural satellite. The problem is that for almost 60 years, the exact site of the Luna 9 moon landing, and therefore its trace, had disappeared because of too approximate coordinates and, above all, the smallness of the machine.
But advances in technology and, above all, the emergence of AI, could help solve this mystery. Researchers from the SETI Institute, including Lewis Pinault, developed the YOLO – ETA (You Only Look Once – Extraterrestrial Artefact) algorithm and trained it, for months, to study known moon landing sites based on thousands of archives.
Based on these video sources, the AI learned to recognize all traces of human signatures on the lunar surface, such as very particular geometric shapes, atypical shadows or even disturbed regolith (layer of dust resulting from the impact of a meteorite on the surface, Editor’s note.). The AI then worked on known sites, such as those resulting from the Apollo missions.
A serious site emerges
After months of study, YOLO – ETA was released over an approximate 5 X 5 km area around the supposed Luna 9 moon landing area, and would have been able to spot a group of recurring objects from the many historical panoramas provided by Luna 9 at coordinates ~7.03° N, –64.33° E. While the exact location of Luna 9 is not 100% confirmed, this location constitutes a credible candidate.
The researchers indeed analyzed the results provided by the algorithm and came to the conclusion that the geometry of the horizon, namely very flat, was compatible with the relief of the candidate site. If the reliability of YOLO – ETA is not yet proven, the fact that it managed to locate Luna 16’s location extremely precisely is, in itself, a very good sign.
The next step for researchers is confirmation of the identified site. If they manage, thanks to higher resolution images, to prove that the site identified by their AI is the right one, then this could open new avenues in space conquest.
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