The majority of exoplanets discovered to date have been discovered using the transit method. This technique is based on a mini eclipse caused when a planet passes in front of its star. The decrease in luminosity observed makes it possible to deduce the existence of a planet and to estimate its diameter, after the observations have been periodically confirmed. However, theory predicts that in many planetary systems, interactions between planets alter this periodicity and make their detection impossible. It is in this context that a team of astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the University of Bern (UniBE), and the NCCR PlanetS, Switzerland, in collaboration with the company Disaitek, used artificial intelligence (AI) applied to image recognition. They taught a machine to predict the effect of interactions between planets, making it possible to discover exoplanets that were impossible to detect until now. The tools developed, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, could be used on Earth to detect illegal dumps and waste dumps
https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2021/decouvrir-des-exoplanetes-grace-a-lintelligence-artificielle/