A high school student from California discovered 1.5 million previously unknown cosmic objects

18-year-old Matteo Paz won the grand prize of the Regeneron Science Talent Search for developing an AI algorithm that analyzed NASA data and discovered 1.5 million previously unknown cosmic objects. Among them are black holes, supernovae, and other variable objects that can help scientists better understand the rate of expansion of the Universe.

Paz began this project during an internship at the California Institute of Technology, Caltech, where he was tasked with manually sorting massive amounts of data from the NEOWISE telescope. Instead, he created a machine learning algorithm that processed 200 terabytes of data, identifying objects with variable brightness. His work impressed scientists so much that he was offered a job at Caltech.

The VarWISE catalog he created is already being used by astronomers to study binary star systems and exoplanets. Paz plans to further investigate NEOWISE data to contribute to solving the mystery of the Universe's expansion rate. Additionally, he is interested in the possibility of launching an infrared telescope to monitor natural disasters such as wildfires.

Source: Business Insider