Chandrayaan-3 confirms presence of sulfur and other elements on lunar South Pole

Chandrayaan-3 confirms presence of sulfur and other elements on lunar South Pole(scienceswitch.com)

209 points by conse_lad 2 years ago | 12 comments

dang 2 years ago |

Most comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37342914, which has the original source this article is reporting on.

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

perihelions 2 years ago |

Was this written by a machine? It looks cogent, but its comprehension feels pretty off if you look closely. I.e. it refers to the bulk elements comprising lunar regolith – aluminum, oxygen, etc. – as "traces". Or that odd line about "faster than traditional sample returns".

Or "The instrument’s success highlights Chandrayaan-3’s potential for unlocking lunar secrets through creative engineering." What??

jamal-kumar 2 years ago | |

Turns out when people try to write press release copy when English isn't their first language it sounds kind of funny. I see this alot in my own line of work. Honestly they're just making their best emulation of the kind of stodgy copy we tend to write in better english that's honestly so samey you don't even need AI to make it, you can just use a cheapo markov chain generator. [1] I use this for my lorem ipsum personally, fun to watch bosses actually try to read it.

[1] http://pasta.phyrama.com:8083/cgi-bin/live.exe

JumpCrisscross 2 years ago | | |

> when English isn't their first language

India is among the world’s largest English-speaking populations. “Official” Indian English is just a tortured evolution of Victorian English, so it comes across as bumbling when contrasted with the clean, crisp communication we tend to value today.

burkaman 2 years ago | |

Was the article edited? I don't see that second quote anywhere. I sort of understand your objection to the first quote, but the original source phrases it basically the same way.

> Preliminary analyses, graphically represented, have unveiled the presence of Aluminum (Al), Sulphur (S), Calcium (Ca), Iron (Fe), Chromium (Cr), and Titanium (Ti) on the lunar surface. Further measurements have revealed the presence of manganese (Mn), silicon (Si), and oxygen (O).

- https://www.isro.gov.in/LIBSResults.html

perihelions 2 years ago | | |

- "Was the article edited?"

Yes, that quote I flagged was immediately fixed. I guess the author is following this HN thread.

qingcharles 2 years ago | |

I don't get that vibe from the article at all. And I deal with thousands of pages of AI content on a regular basis.

LeoPanthera 2 years ago | |

> Was this written by a machine?

No, it was written by someone for whom English is not their first language.

perihelions 2 years ago | | |

My complaint's sort of the opposite of that: that it's superficially polished and fluid language that, if you examine it closely, lacks sense.

I don't think this was written by a thoughtful, careful human writer crossing language barriers. I suspect it's an LLM told to summarize a source material (i.e. the ISRO press release), reword it, and append extra filler language.

(Indeed, there are also some awkward English grammar issues – in the original ISRO press release, which the OP fixes).

serv0id 2 years ago | |

isn't almost everything on the internet written by machines nowadays?

matthewfelgate 2 years ago | | |

As a language model I can't help you with that.

throwaway220033 2 years ago | |

Nobody gets hurt by a little departure from reality, generating hype with low quality images and articles.

It's just meant to be nothing but a campaign anyways.