Amateur Astronomer Uses AI to Find Possible Exoplanet in NASA TESS Data

Spain-based amateur astronomer Pavel Rabtsevich used AI agents to analyze TESS data on more than 126,000 stars and found a repeating brightness dip in star TIC 4206066 in the constellation Orion, about 116 light-years away. The candidate could be a super-Earth with a radius about 1.4 times Earth's and a roughly 3-day orbit, but it has not been confirmed as a planet.

• AI algorithm processed TESS data on over 126,000 stars
• Star TIC 4206066 dims for about 2 hours every 3 days
• Estimated radius about 1.4 Earth radii, temperature up to 540 °C
• The signal was flagged before, but no planet confirmation yet