It's not only speech recognition and smart home appliances, AI is doing all kinds of jobs for us. It's suited to jobs that involve lots of numbers. AI can calculate and decipher patterns at the speed of electricity. This is why asking it to search for planets around other stars has been so fruitful. By assessing data from the Kepler telescope, the technology has discovered something that we didn't.


The funny part is, we already knew about seven of the eight worlds orbiting Kepler 90. The name comes from the telescope that discovered it. The AI found the extra one, and it so happens that it is in the same spot as the Earth, 3rd one out. Named Kepler 90i, out of alphabetical order to its neighbours, the wonky roll call goes to show how new our technology and understanding is.



This Earthly planet is around a third bigger than our own. Because of the differences in the star's output and orbital range of the system, Kepler 90i is expected to be around the same temperature as Venus. That's a rock melting 400 degrees or more. This means that it is unlikely to be anything like the Earth up close, but it does tell us a lot about what kind of worlds are out there.


But how do we know all this? Tiny fluctuations in light and gravity induced wobbles of stars are the tell tale signs of planets. Being able to detect these things at great distances is difficult. Extremely receptive giant mirrors are the key. These capture the light required to determine the give-away changes in positioning and brightness.


Together with the number crunching smart computers, able to see the patterns we miss, the telescopes and space scientists are opening the book of the cosmos and turning its pages with ever increasing velocity. We are always only moments away from another discovery, and it can only be a matter of time before we find something like the Earth.

Data science? It's in everything. This is what you need to know

Read more about this discovery.


What would you call a planet if you discovered one? I'm looking forward to reading your comments.