Finding traces of life on other planets is one of the most fascinating and exciting aspects of astronomy. Scientists have long aspired to identify planets that might one day be habitable. With that far-fetched goal in mind, a team of Indian researchers – two students and a professor – have found not one but 60 planets, out of a total of 5,000 known, that could potentially be habitable. living. To come to this conclusion, the team relied on an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based method called Memetic Multi-Stage Binary Tree Anomaly Identification (MSMBTAI).
The method the researchers used is based on anomaly detection through a novel multi-stage memetic algorithm (MSMA). The algorithm can act as a screening tool to evaluate views of habitability from observed properties. This means that researchers have treated Earth as an anomalous object, which means it is the only habitable planet out of the thousands known to date.
Using this criterion, the researchers explored whether similar “anomalous candidates” (such as Earth) exist in the universe. Their exploration resulted in an astonishing 60 planets exhibiting similar anomalies. The result is the same when the method considers the surface temperature of the planets as a feature and no surface temperature. Researchers have also suggested that there could be a total of 8,000 planets in the universe.
The researchers are from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute based in Bengaluru under the Ministry of Science and Technology. They were joined by an undergraduate student, Kartik Bhatia, from BITS Pilani’s Goa campus, and a doctoral candidate, Jyotirmoy Sarkar, from the same college. Others also contributed to the study, published in magazine Monthly notice of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Artificial intelligence has helped researchers scan thousands of planets because manually comparing data points would be a tedious task.
The researchers also have the guidance and supervision of Professor Snehanshu Saha of BITS Pilani (Goa Campus) and Dr Margarita Safonova of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.
