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Searching for Noah's Ark: Analysing the Ararat Anomaly By Michelle Mandalain Posted on 02 July 2014 The boat-shaped Ararat Anomaly is circled in red. Image © 2014 DigitalGlobe, Inc Prof Sunil Maharaj of the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, and Francois Luus, a PhD student, recently featured in an article titled Noahs search: probing satellite imagery for lost ark, which was headlined on Space.com, Discovery.com, as well as the science pages of Yahoo and Fox News. “We developed a new artificial intelligence method that can objectively quantify and identify points of interest on remotely sensed anomalies, which provides valuable information that can help characterise the underlying cause of an anomaly,” Luus said. Their expertise was recently requested by Prof Porcher L Taylor III from the University of Richmond, the lead investigator of the Ararat Anomaly, which has been identified as a possible landing site of the Biblical Noah's ark on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. “The search for the elusive Noah's ark intrigued us, and our machine intelligence methodology was a perfect fit for the type of analysis that was required for the Ararat Anomaly,” Maharaj said. DigitalGlobe, a leading commercial vendor of space imagery and geospatial content, and operator of civilian remote sensing spacecraft, has flown numerous missions over the Anomaly at the behest of Prof Taylor. “We analysed the Ararat Anomaly in one of these specially commandeered satellite images, and we harnessed special machine perception to locate novel components on the Anomaly that warrant further investigation,” Luus stated. Several unique and interesting textures have been identified on the Anomaly, but their final interpretation perhaps rests in an archaeological or geological domain. DigitalGlobe's new WorldView-3 spacecraft, slated for launch this year, would be the highest-resolution commercial satellite in the world with a panchromatic resolution of 31 cm. “We are very excited at the prospect of obtaining a new acquisition of the Ararat Anomaly from this satellite, as it could provide the high definition required to properly characterise points of interest on the Anomaly,” Luus said. Click on the following links for more information: www.space.com/26318-noah-ark-search-satellite-images.html news.discovery.com/history/religion/noahs-search-probing-satellite-imagery-for-lost-ark-140624.htm news.yahoo.com/noahs-search-probing-satellite-imagery-lost-ark-114103935.html www.foxnews.com/science/2014/06/24/noah-search-probing-satellite-imagery-for-lost-ark/ Language Editor: M Mandalain << Back to the news list Bookmark this page:
