Media reports say that for the first time, artificial intelligence (AI) has searched for, detected, confirmed, classified, and announced a supernova discovery without any human intervention.
ScienceAlert reported on October 16 that an international team of scientists developed a new AI tool called Bright Transient Survey Bot (BTSbot), using over 1.4 million images from nearly 16,000 sources to train its machine-learning algorithm.
Northwestern University reportedly said that the new system allows automation of the entire star explosion discovery process, which not only eliminates human error but also dramatically increases speed.
"Ultimately, removing humans from the loop provides more time for the research team to analyze their observations and develop new hypotheses to explain the origin of the cosmic explosions that we observe," Northwestern astronomer Adam Miller, one of the lead researchers in the development of BTSbot, was quoted as saying.
BTSbot reportedly detected the newly discovered supernova named SN2023tyk in data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a robotic camera in California that scans the northern sky every two days.
Northwestern Now reported on October 13 that to detect and analyze supernovae, humans currently work hand in hand with robotic systems. First, robotic telescopes repeatedly image the same sections of the night sky, searching for new sources that were not present in previous images.
There are existing robotic telescopes that can collect spectra, but this is also often done by humans operating telescopes with spectrographs. The researchers reportedly developed the BTSbot to cut out this human middleman.
