NASA and Google have announced a great discovery: a twin solar system located by the Kepler space probe thanks to the help of artificial intelligence. The Kepler-90 solar system has 8 planets, just like ours, and two new worlds have been specifically identified and validated: Kepler-90i, a hot and rocky orb that surrounds a Sun-like star called Kepler-90, which is 2,545 light years from Earth and Kepler 80g.
How did Google’s AI discover exoplanets?
A team of scientists trained a machine to learn (what we know as machine learning) to detect exoplanets through the light readings recorded by the Kepler space telescope, that is, the minute changes in brightness captured when a planet passes in front of a star or transits it.
“The way I see it, what we have developed here is a tool to help astronomers have more impact,” said Christopher Shallue, a Google software engineer.
In fact, astronomers were already aware of the Kepler-90 solar system, but had not previously detected these planets. As for Kepler-90i, it appears to be the star’s third planet – similar to our Sun – and orbits approximately every 14 days. The surface temperature is estimated to be around 980 ° C. It is a very small planet (similar to the size of Mercury) and without habitability conditions, but it helps us to continue collecting more data for our planetary formation models.
Google’s AI processed 14 billion data points from four years of Kepler images, using what’s known as a neural network (pretty basic, by the way) that somehow mimics the way the brain human processes information.
“As we expected, there are exciting discoveries hidden in our archived Kepler data, waiting for the right tool or technology to be discovered. This finding shows that our information will be a treasure trove available to innovative researchers for years to come,” explains Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division.
Algorithms and space exploration
NASA and Google state that this new technology will help scientists find many more exoplanets in the future. In fact, they are convinced that the Kepler-90 solar system probably has more planets that we have not yet detected.
” It would be almost surprising to me if there weren’t more. Is an eight-planet solar system like ours really that extraordinary? Perhaps there are systems with so many planets that make our solar system seem ordinary,” reflects NASA’s Andrew Vanderburg.
It is clear that we are starting a new stage of intensive use of artificial intelligence algorithms in space exploration.
More planets to discover
The total exoplanets confirmed so far by the space agency is now 2,525 , and 10 of them may be rocky, Earth-sized, and possibly habitable for extraterrestrial life.
Despite the use of artificial intelligence to discover new worlds, Jessie Dotson, a Kepler project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, explained that astronomers will always be necessary to classify objects before feeding the information. in a neural network, so that the AI can learn to see the new data.
Are we facing a new era of astronomy?
Reference: NASA
