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The Indian Institute of Astrophysics is the source of the research (IIA)

It's a Department of Science and Technology institute situated in Bengaluru.

Two students from BITS Pilani joined the researchers.

WHY IN NEWS

One of the most fascinating and thrilling elements of astronomy is discovering evidence of life on other planets. Experts have recently hoped to find galaxies that may be livable in the future. With the that faraway objective in mind, a trio of Indian scientists — two students and a professor – have discovered not one, but 60 possibly habitable planets out of a total of 5,000 known. The researchers used an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology called Multi-Stage Memetic Binary Tree Anomaly Identifier to get to this result (MSMBTAI). The researchers' technique relies on an unique multi-stage memetic algorithm to detect anomalies (MSMA). The method may be used as a screening tool to assess the habitability of features that have been observed. 

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This suggests that the scientists regarded Earth as an outlier, as the sole planetary body among the hundreds of planets discovered thus far. The researchers used the standard to see if any other 'anomaly candidates' (like Earth) exist in the cosmos. They discovered 60 planets with comparable abnormalities as a consequence of their research. When the approach included the surface temperatures of planets as a feature and when the method did not include the heat increases, the outcome was the same. According to the experts, the cosmos might include up to 8,000 planets in total. 

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The researchers are from the Indian Agency of Astrophysics (IIA), a Department of Science and Technology independent institute situated in Bengaluru. Kartik Bhatia, an undergraduate student from BITS Pilani's Goa campus, and Jyotirmoy Sarkar, a PhD candidate from the same college, joined them. Others also participated to the study, which was published in the Royal Astronomical Society's journal Monthly Notices. The researchers were able to scan through thousands of planets thanks to artificial intelligence, as manually comparing data points would have been time-consuming. Professor Snehanshu Saha of BITS Pilani (Goa Campus) and Dr. Margarita Safonova of Institute of Astronomy also provided advice and oversight to the scientists.

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