⚠️ AI may have helped discover a planet hiding in NASA data since 2018

An independent researcher used Claude Code to identify a possible new exoplanet buried in NASA’s TESS data since 2018, with no earlier report of the candidate found by the researcher.

Claude Code, powered by Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1, handled much of the technical work: analyzing stellar brightness data, searching for transits, fitting the signals and ruling out potential false positives. The researcher defined the questions and criteria for validating the result.

The candidate orbits a star roughly 116 light-years away. Every 3.18 days, the star dims by around 0.05% for about two hours, a pattern consistent with a planet approximately 1.4 times the size of Earth.

It’s not a confirmed discovery yet. NASA’s TESS mission is scheduled to observe the system again from October 31 to November 26, potentially providing more evidence.

Source.

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