AI is helping astronomers make new discoveries and learn about the universe faster than ever before
I’m an astronomer who studies and has written about cosmology, black holes and exoplanets.
- I’m an astronomer who studies and has written about cosmology, black holes and exoplanets.
- As the technology has become more powerful, AI algorithms have begun helping astronomers tame massive data sets and discover new knowledge about the universe.
Better telescopes, more data
- As telescopes have continued to improve, the sheer number of celestial objects humans can see and the amount of data astronomers need to sort through have both grown exponentially, too.
- AI algorithms are the only way astronomers could ever hope to work through all of the data available to them today.
- There are a number of ways AI is proving useful in processing this data.
Picking out patterns
- AI algorithms – in particular, neural networks that use many interconnected nodes and are able to learn to recognize patterns – are perfectly suited for picking out the patterns of galaxies.
- Now the algorithms are so effective that they can classify galaxies with an accuracy of 98%.
- Now, researchers are using AI to sift through reams of data much more quickly and thoroughly than people can.
- This has allowed SETI efforts to cover more ground while also greatly reducing the number of false positive signals.
Making new discoveries
- But it is also quite powerful at finding objects or phenomena that are theorized but have not yet been discovered in the real world.
- To do this, astronomers first use AI to convert theoretical models into observational signatures – including realistic levels of noise.
- Finally, radio astronomers have also been using AI algorithms to sift through signals that don’t correspond to known phenomena.
Making predictions and plugging holes
- As in many areas of life recently, generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT are also making waves in the astronomy world.
- The team that created the first image of a black hole in 2019 used a generative AI to produce its new image.
- To do so, it first taught an AI how to recognize black holes by feeding it simulations of many kinds of black holes.