Amateur astronomer used AI to find possible exoplanet at TIC 4206066

Pavel Rabtsevich, with no telescope or formal astronomy training, used Claude Code, Codex and Jev to analyze TESS data on 126,000 stars and found brightness dips every 3.18 days at TIC 4206066, 116 light-years away. The candidate is about 1.4 times Earth's size, and MIT approved TESS follow-up observations from October 31 to November 26.

• TESS dataset covered 126,000 stars; the analysis took about two weeks
• TIC 4206066 dims every 3.18 days and sits 116 light-years away
• Candidate is 1.4 times Earth's size with surface near 1,000 °F
• MIT approved TESS observations from Oct 31 to Nov 26 every 2 minutes