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The Detection of a Possible Exoplanet Orbiting KIC 1718360 Using Machine Learning

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.EP

May 10, 2024

Filed under AI, astro-ph.EP, astronomy, Earthlike planet, exoplanet, G1.5IV-V type star, imaging, Kepler, KIC 1718360, Machine learning, TESS

The Detection of a Possible Exoplanet Orbiting KIC 1718360 Using Machine Learning — This is the original lightcurve detected by the model from Kepler’s Quarter 16 observation. Quarter 16 lasted approximately 80 days. Figure 1 depicts the lightcurve that the model flagged as possibly being a transit. While some long-term variation in the brightness is observed, it does not seem to impact the recurrence of a signal with a period of 2.9376 days. While the lightcurve shares some characteristics of variable star lightcurves, this star is not catalogued as a variable7 . While it is possible that it is an uncatalogued variable, the star’s relative proximity to Earth (around 978 ly), and the extent to which we’ve catalogued nearby variables8makes this unlikely. — astro-ph.EP

This paper presents the detection of a periodic dimming event in the lightcurve of the G1.5IV-V type star KIC 1718360. This is based on visible-light observations conducted by both the TESS and Kepler space telescopes.

Analysis of the data points toward a possible orbiting body with a radius of approximately 1.048 Earth Radii with a period of 2.938 days, as well as a semi-major axis of 0.04 AU. The initial observation was made in Kepler Quarter 16 data using the One-Class SVM machine learning method. Subsequent observations by the TESS space telescope corroborate these findings.

While still requiring further data to validate, these results may contribute to a growing body of data of Earthlike planets with short-period orbits.

Jakob Roche

Comments: 6 pages, 6 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Machine Learning (cs.LG)
Cite as: arXiv:2405.05282 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2405.05282v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Jakob Roche
[v1] Tue, 7 May 2024 12:34:18 UTC (233 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.05282
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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