Where Medical Technology and Astrophysics Meet

At the University of Bern, astrophysicists of the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) teamed up with medical technology researchers to develop a new method to analyse spectra of atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. The unusual collaboration applied an artificial intelligence tool to study the chemistry of exoplanetary atmospheres. At the University of Bern, astrophysicists of the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) teamed up with medical technology researchers to develop a new method to analyse spectra of atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. The unusual collaboration applied an artificial intelligence tool to study the chemistry of exoplanetary atmospheres. "The way Raphael Sznitman and his team look at images is very similar to the way astronomers are analysing images and we even speak roughly the same technical language," Kevin Heng states: "Whether in astronomy or medical technology, we always try to understand the flaws of imaging technologies and improve them." Raphael Sznitman explains: "In my group we develop analytical methods that can be applied to different types of data." So, the two scientists decided to start a very unusual interdisciplinary collaboration and attempted for the first time to apply machine learning as a superior pattern recognition tool to analyse exoplanetary atmospheres. The resulting paper has now been published Astronomy. The choice between pragmatism and realism.