Anthropic's Claude Science creates the first complete ultraviolet map of the sky

Anthropic's Claude Science just mapped the entire sky in ultraviolet light for the first time. The project is supposed to show how AI can take over tedious data work that researchers would otherwise never get around to. Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Brice Ménard describes the process on the Anthropic website.

UV light reveals dust lit up by starlight, things like clouds around young stars or rings left behind by stellar explosions. A complete UV map didn't exist until now because the ozone layer blocks UV 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.

Claude Science coordinates AI agents that downloaded data from multiple space missions, calibrated it, and merged it together. They filled missing areas using inpainting, a technique where a model learns from existing data to reconstruct gaps. In tests, predictions averaged about ten percent deviation from actual measurements.

The map is meant to serve as teaching material. Ménard suspects many scientists have been putting off similar projects that AI could now make possible.

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