Johns Hopkins astrophysicist uses Claude Science to build what Anthropic calls the first complete ultraviolet map of the sky
About a third of the map, including much of the galactic plane, was predicted from other data. Each pixel is labeled as measured or predicted and comes with an uncertainty estimate.
Brice Ménard, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who is also a researcher at Anthropic, has described how he used Claude Science to produce a complete map of the sky in ultraviolet light. The map combines far-UV at 154 nanometers and near-UV at 232 nanometers. A complete UV map did not exist before because the ozone layer blocks ultraviolet light, so it can only be measured from space. NASA's GALEX mission covered about two-thirds of the sky but skipped bright star-forming regions. According to The Decoder, Claude Science coordinated AI agents that downloaded data from several space missions, calibrated it and merged it. The agents filled the gaps with inpainting, a technique in which a model learns from existing data to reconstruct missing areas. About a third of the final map, including much of the galactic plane, is predicted rather than measured. In tests, predictions differed from actual measurements by about ten percent on average. Extra layers mark every pixel as measured or predicted and give uncertainty estimates. Ménard says the map is mainly a teaching tool that shows students the structure of the Milky Way at this wavelength. The Decoder reports that he suspects many scientists have put off similar data-heavy projects that AI could now make possible.