- Role
- Finalist
- Region
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- she/her/hers
Arushi Nath
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Project
NEPTUNE: N-body Exoplanet Prediction using TTVs for Unseen Exoplanets
Project #1203
Traditional exoplanet detection methods overlook multi-planet systems containing long-period or non-transiting planets. Discovering these systems is essential to further our knowledge of planetary formation in diverse planetary architectures. I developed NEPTUNE, an open-source tool that analyzes Transit Timing Variations (TTVs)—small timing shifts in the transits of known planets caused by gravitational interactions with unseen companions in multi-planet systems. It uses N-body simulations, machine learning, Bayesian inference, and multi-period analysis to detect long-period, non-transiting planets and characterize them with quantified uncertainties. Validation with Kepler-46b TTV data demonstrates NEPTUNE's accuracy, recovering its unseen companion Kepler-46c's period (57 days), eccentricity (0.01), and mass (~110 Earth masses), matching NASA. Furthermore, analysis of understudied TTVs from Kepler-1710b suggests the presence of an undetected planetary candidate of ~31 Earth masses, prompting follow-up by the Kepler research group. NEPTUNE integrates data from Kepler, TESS, and ExoClock, enabling citizen scientists to uncover hidden exoplanets.
- Challenge
- Aerospace
- Category
- Intermediate
- Type
- Innovation