The SETI Institute announced the Davie Postdoctoral Fellowship in Artificial Intelligence for Astronomy, inviting researchers to refine and expand ML-driven pipelines for exoplanet discovery. The successful candidate will join the SETI Institute researcher Dr. Vishal Gajjar and his team and collaborators at the SETI Institute and IIT Tirupati in India. This project will focus on enhancing supervised CNN architectures and integrating anomaly-detection techniques to uncover subtle or unconventional signals hidden within massive datasets. The application deadline is March 15, 2025. Information about how to apply is here.

“Machine learning is transforming the way we search for exoplanets, allowing us to uncover hidden patterns in vast datasets,” said Gajjar. “This fellowship will accelerate the development of advanced AI tools to detect not just conventional planets, but also exotic and unconventional transit signatures including potential technosignatures.”

The SETI Institute is grateful to John Davie, who supports the Davie Postdoctoral Fellowship. Davie reached out to the SETI Institute out of curiosity about its research. Through discussions with Gajjar, he wanted to be part of creating a meaningful impact.

Earliest inner solar system planetesimals shaped the inventory of moderately volatile elements in terrestrial planets. 

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a cosmic bullseye! The gargantuan galaxy LEDA 1313424 is rippling with nine star-filled rings after an “arrow” — a far smaller blue dwarf galaxy — shot through its heart. Astronomers using Hubble identified eight visible rings, more than previously detected by any telescope in any galaxy, and confirmed a ninth using data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Previous observations of other galaxies show a maximum of two or three rings.

Using in part the NEID spectrograph mounted on the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at the U.S. National Science Foundation Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab, a team of astronomers have confirmed the existence of exoplanet Gaia-4b — one of the most massive planets known to orbit a low-mass star. Gaia-4b is also the first planet detected by the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft using the astrometric technique.

Using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, scientists have found a huge exoplanet and a brown dwarf. This is the first time a planet has been uniquely discovered by Gaia’s ability to sense the gravitational tug or ‘wobble’ the planet induces on a star. Both the planet and brown dwarf are orbiting low-mass stars, a scenario thought to be extremely rare. 

A research team from KAIST Nuclear and Quantum Engineering presents an AI assesser for Hall-effect ion thrusters, the engines of satellites and space probes.