back to article Kepler may be dead but its data keeps on giving, thanks to AI: Two alien worlds found in archives

Machine-learning algorithms have been used to uncover two previously unseen exoplanets in the archive of data amassed by NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope. Launched in 2009, Kepler was sent to survey the dark reaches of the Milky Way. Its job was to hunt for alien worlds by scrutinizing the light emitted by faraway stars. …

  1. LucreLout
    Pint

    Well done!

    That's some damn good work, especially for an undergrad. My intern is, err, not doing anything so cool.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Well done!

      >My intern is, err, not doing anything so cool.

      Well depending on whether your intern is male or female, either give them a kick up the backside or a motivational pat on the back, by showing them the UT article https://news.utexas.edu/2019/03/26/two-new-planets-discovered-using-artificial-intelligence/

    2. John Gamble
      Childcatcher

      Re: Well done!

      KidsUndergrads these days. Why, when I was an undergrad I learned stuff like how to play D&D. Now they're off finding planets. What is the introsolar world coming to.

      1. Stevie

        Re: Well done!

        When I were undergrad D&D hadn't been invented. We 'ad ter mek do wi' Diplomacy an' Risk.

  2. wayne 8

    slightly bigger and hotter than Earth.

    Manmade global warming way out there?

    Seems like machine learning requires quite a bit of human brain power to get it going.

    Which nation or corporation will lay or has laid claim to these planets?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: slightly bigger and hotter than Earth.

      > Which nation or corporation will lay or has laid claim to these planets?

      Too late. I have. And I've patented the process of laying claim to exoplanets, which is now available to licence for the small amount of only 5% of all profits you make from a claimed planet.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: slightly bigger and hotter than Earth.

        >And I've patented the process of laying claim to exoplanets, which is now available to licence for the small amount of only 5% of all profits you make from a claimed planet.

        Shame it is highly likely both the patent and you will have expired many decades before any expedition gets anywhere near to touching down on an exoplanet...

  3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Hi Vladimir. The Board is Yours for Now to Lead with LOVE*

    "Disintegrating planets are one example, these planets have different shaped transits than 'typical' planets.

    As are the making of planets too, methinks, true, and ready for Confessing to All Almighty Thinking Surrounding RusCOSMICQ Deliberations.

    * Live Operational Virtual Environments ........ the Like of Which are Truly Made Wonderfully Difficult to Fail in. .......... Given the Heavenly Delights LOVE Always All Ways Gives in Practices for XSSXXXX Travel to Mutual Explosive Satisfaction ......... and the Heavenly Orgasm which renders Out of this World Experience.

    Have you any idea how easy that is to follow. .... :-) and if the fact be wider known that many are quasi-religiously following, would such simple news be led by IT&AISytems Make0vers with Legit Take0vers of Failed SCADA Systems Admin Executive Offices and create a Vital and Viral and Virile Current All of Its Own for SMARTR Use with Underground Movements ..... doing some tectonic plate shifting housecleaning.

    A Virtual Bonfire of the Vanities ...... Chapter 0 ..... In the Beginning, with Everything to Lose with Exercises Attempted Yesterday, ..... certainly focusses the mind on the value of hindsight in a foresight of Immaculate Sees was as strange a start to the Ritual AI Burning of Closed Siloed Systems.

    Does El Reg have a Moscow Presence ....... Satellite Base Office with Succulent AI Wares for Mother Russian Sourcing and Resourcing ........ with Enriched NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Cores Fully ACTivated for the Full Monty Total Immersion Therapy Session.

    You got a Real Huge Problem? Vent Air here for Peer AIReview and/or Revision. Beware though there is worthy derision in the arsenal of weapons supplied and made freely available to Peer AIReview and Revision Groups.

    Really Strange Who Dares Win Wins Territory Devoid of Detritus Leads to Showering in Life's Endless Opportunities. If you're looking for the map to there, that will be at least two of us looking for and testing answers with questions for source. :-)

    1. jphb

      Re: Hi Vladimir. The Board is Yours for Now to Lead with LOVE*

      Eh?

    2. batfink

      Re: Hi Vladimir. The Board is Yours for Now to Lead with LOVE*

      Well if anyone around here speaks for the extraterrestrials it's amanfrommars...

    3. Alistair
      Windows

      Re: Hi Vladimir. The Board is Yours for Now to Lead with LOVE*

      @aMfM:

      Yes, but is that board a carpenters dream or something just a bit wider, longer and better polished. It seems to me that the *chair* is the subject that needs more coverage.

      And yes, they could be in formation process as much as destruction process. You know darned well it sells better if they are disintegrating.

      If Roscosmos were to get a bit more funding, its possible they could step out from simply being the 'bus company', but we all know that the oligarchy is far more about putting cash in their own pockets before doing things that make sense to the rest of the country.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hi Vladimir. The Board is Yours for Now to Lead with LOVE*

      ... Park life.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hi Vladimir. The Board is Yours for Now to Lead with LOVE*

      More to email, please. Unbelieveable. Hope you know it.

  4. Agent Tick
    WTF?

    Exo Astronomy..

    ...the most useless industry/profession on planet earth

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Exo Astronomy..

      "...the most useless industry/profession on planet earth"

      ...and yet, the technology and research investment into optics, stabilisation, image enhancement, machine learning techniques and probably many others are all benefiting from it. Sometimes, it's not the end research that produces the best results for humanity as a whole, but the technology and techniques developed along the way, things that may or may not have been done without the targetted research project. Sometimes it's just bringing people from different disciplines together who might not have otherwise met and combining their knowledge. War tends to accelerate technological advancement, but I'd rather we got it from "blue sky projects" than more war.

    2. GrapeBunch

      Re: Exo Astronomy..

      Sorry, I disagree. Exo-Biology is the subject with no subject matter.

    3. takyon
      Stop

      Re: Exo Astronomy..

      It's time (for you) to stop.

    4. Tom 7

      Re: Exo Astronomy..

      How about if we just called it "Black Sky Research" Agent Thick?

  5. STOP_FORTH
    Trollface

    Statistics

    Granted, if we have found thousands of exo-planets you could infer that there are many more to find, given that the transit method only picks out systems where the the exo-planet passes in front of the star from our point of view.

    BUT you don't know that for certain, we may have found them all already.

    It's about time we stopped calling them exo-planets, surely? It sort of made sense when there were only a few of them. We don't call the stars in these systems exo-suns. We don't call the Andromeda Nebula an exo-galaxy.

    1. Kriilin

      Re: Statistics

      Well, in that case, we'll need a new word for planets not of our Solar System. It's understood that "sun" refers specifically to Sol, "our star" if you will. When we refer to "stars" it's implied that we're talking about any other stars that aren't Sol, unless otherwise stated.

    2. Tom 7

      Re: Statistics

      It does make you wonder. If you look at our solar system from Pluto and just tilt things a little bit nothing goes in front of the sun!

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Statistics

      "BUT you don't know that for certain, we may have found them all already."

      Although not impossible, the odds are strongly against that supposition. We've barely looked at are own galaxy to date, let alone the billions of other galaxies. Actually, scratch that billions, it's more like trillions since we got a look at a tiny bit of "dark" sky courtesy of the first Hubble Deep Field images.

      I'll not bother quoting the full Douglas Adams "Space is big..." quote, we all know it now :-)

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    TEN YEARS?

    Ten years and it's dead?

    I hardly call that space-age telescoping.

  7. Conundrum1885

    Re. Bah

    Lest we forget space is filled with fast moving particles and nasty greasy radiation. Also it did well to last ten years, my car is more recent and has had major system failures.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like