Artificial intelligence is helping astronomers discover new planets

The newly-discovered Kepler-90i – a hot, rocky planet that orbits its star once every 14.4 days – was found using machine learning from Google Forget self-driving cars and computers that can beat humans at chess, artificial intelligence is helping astronomers make huge steps towards solving some of the Universe's biggest mysteries. For the first time, artificial intelligence has been used to discover two new exoplanets. One of the discoveries, made by Nasa's Kepler mission, brings the Kepler-90 solar system to a total of 8 planets - the first solar system found with the same number as our own. The majority of exoplanets are discovered using what is called the transit method. Telescopes are pointed at stars, studying them over long periods of time, which means they can look out for tiny dips in the brightness as a planet passes in front.