Calling AI experts! Join the hunt for exoplanets.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts have been challenged to help a new space mission to investigate Earth’s place in the universe.

The Ariel Data Challenge 2023, which launches on 14 April, is inviting AI and machine learning experts from industry and academia to help astronomers understand planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. 

Understanding our place in the universe

Astronomers found over 5000 planets orbiting stars in our galaxy using space telescopes. The European Space Agency’s Ariel telescope will observe the atmospheres of one-fifth of these exoplanets. Due to the large number of planets and complexity of the data, the mission scientists seek help from the AI and machine learning community to interpret the data.

Ariel Data Challenge

Ariel will study the light from each exoplanet’s host star after it has travelled through the planet’s atmosphere in what is known as a spectrum. The information from these spectra can help scientists investigate the chemical makeup of the planet’s atmosphere and discover more about these planets and how they formed. 

Scientists involved in the Ariel mission need a new method to interpret these data. Advanced machine learning techniques could help them to understand the impact of different atmospheric phenomena on the observed spectrum.

Key Information about the Challenge

Start: 14th April 2023

End: 18th June 2023

Prize: Sponsored Ticket to ECML-PKDD or Cash Prize for top 3 winners + Invited Talk at the Ariel consortium meeting and other research institutes  + Conference Proceedings for top 3 winners. 

HPC resources: Free GPU computing resources for participants!*

Interested? Join here: https://www.ariel-datachallenge.space/

Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), European Research Council, UKRI Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC) Scientific Machine Learning (SciML) Division, European Space Agency and Europlanet Society support the competition.

We are also grateful for the support of our partnering organisations: The Alan Turing Institute, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, INAF – National Institute for Astrophysics, ML Analytics, UK Space Agency, STFC RAL Space, SpaceFlux, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Padova, University of Vienna, UCL DISI, Brandeis University, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

More details about the competition and how to take part can be found on the Ariel Data Challenge website. Follow @ArielTelescope for more updates. 

*on a first come first serve basis