Netflix algorithms could help NASA identify life-supporting planetary systems

Netflix employs an algorithm that helps its users discover movie options, and now it's about to help discover new planetary systems. Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough have developed a new approach to identifying stable planetary systems based on the machine learning artificial intelligence Netflix uses. "Machine learning offers a powerful way to tackle a problem in astrophysics, and that's predicting whether planetary systems are stable," Dan Tamayo, lead author of the research and a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Planetary Science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said in a press release. Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that allows computers to learn new functions without being programmed. This is how Netflix can make scarily accurate predictions of what you're interested in watching without you telling it.