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BTSbot: The AI Revolution in Supernova Detection by Northwestern Researchers
Bright Transient Survey Bot, also known as BTSbot, has successfully detected its first supernova. The AI tool BTSbot was developed by a group of researchers at Northwestern University. Experts are considering this event a groundbreaking development in the field of astronomy.
Supernovas are considered as crucial celestial events in the field of astronomy. They are explosive deaths of massive stars, and are often studied by astronomers to understand the universe's fundamental workings. However, the process of detecting and classifying these cosmic fireworks is immensely time-consuming. The process often involves thousands of hours. Over the past six years, experts and researchers have spent more than 2,200 hours to detect and inspect the supernovas.
To get rid of the time and human effort it consumes, the international group of researchers developed the AI tool, BTSbot and now it is quite evident that it can effectively cater as a solution to this problem. BTSbot (Bright Transient Survey Bot), as its name suggests, focuses on bright transients which helps it to accelerate the process of analyzing and classifying new supernovas. Moreover, it also reduces the errors humans usually cause.
Presently, supernova detection and classification needs both human observers and the help of software, but BTSbot is designed to work independently, without the need of human involvement. It automatically analyzes and classifies data related to supernovas.
The BTSbot has been trained with more than 1.4 million historical images from 16,000 astronomical sources. This training process has helped the AI tool to work more effectively.
Adam Miller, the lead researcher on the project, expressed his excitement. He said "For the first time ever, a series of robots and AI algorithms has observed, then identified, then communicated with another telescope to finally confirm the discovery of a supernova. This represents an important step forward as further refinement of models will allow the robots to isolate specific subtypes of stellar explosions."