The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Daniel Muthukrishna

Center for Astrophysics

AstroAI Fellow

Daniel Muthukrishna

daniel.muthukrishna@cfa.harvard.edu

About

Dr. Daniel Muthukrishna is an AstroAI Fellow at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he applies state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to advance our understanding of the universe. He received his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge in 2021. He concurrently works as a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) team to develop neural-network-based methods for exoplanet and time-domain analyses. Originally from Brisbane, Australia, Daniel earned dual degrees in Engineering (Electrical & Aerospace) and Science (Physics) from the University of Queensland. His research spans the modeling of supernovae, variable stars, classification of exoplanets, and the development of widely used software tools for classification, modeling, and anomaly detection in large astronomical datasets. By integrating methods such as diffusion models, transformers, and recurrent neural networks into astrophysical research, Daniel is helping to pioneer the rapidly growing field at the intersection of astrophysics and artificial intelligence.

PhD at University of Cambridge

Telescopes and Instruments

Magellan Telescopes

The twin Magellan Telescopes in Chile are each 6.5 meter optical telescopes. These telescopes are both equipped with instruments to take images and spectra of light from a wide variety of astronomical sources, including exoplanet systems, star-forming regions, supernova remnants, and interacting galaxies. The Magellan Telescopes — named Baade and Clay — are hosted at the Las Campanas Observatory and are operated by a consortium of institutions, including the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Carnegie Institution for Science, University of Arizona, the University of Michigan, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, CfA scientists and engineers provided a wide field f/5 focal system (including secondary mirror and corrective optics), and a powerful astronomical camera for use at the Clay telescope.

Visit the Magellan Telescopes Website

Kepler/K2

Since the early 1990s, astronomers have identified thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Most of those identifications have come thanks to one observatory: NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Until it lost its ability to point, Kepler observed a region of the sky containing about 150,000 stars with potential planets, monitoring them for the slight decrease in light caused by planets crossing in front of the star. After the spacecraft’s pointing control failed, the mission was renamed K2, and it continued to hunt for exoplanets as it tumbled slowly, with its field of view drifting slowly across the sky. The mission finally ended in 2018, though the data it produced continues to provide astronomers with valuable information about planets in our galactic neighborhood. Astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian were responsible for the preparation of the catalog for potentially interesting stars, and have participated extensively in follow-up observations of Kepler planetary discoveries.

Visit the Kepler/K2 Website

Pan-STARRS-1 Science Consortium

Many objects in the sky don’t change or move visibly on human time scales. However, many others do, especially objects in the Solar System. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) program is designed to monitor the sky for transient astronomical phenomena: everything from near-Earth asteroids to supernovas in far-off galaxies. The first phase of the program, Pan-STARRS1, used a 1.8-meter telescope on the summit of Haleakalā on the island of Maui in Hawaii. The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian is part of the international Pan-STARRS1 Science consortium, along with the University of Hawaii and other institutions around the world. Pan-STARRS1 data revealed many asteroids, comets, and other previously-unknown moving or variable astronomical objects.

Visit the Pan-STARRS1 Science Consortium Website

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Extrapolating from that knowledge, the Milky Way alone is probably home to hundreds of billions of planets, many of which are likely rocky, Earth-like worlds. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space observatory designed to look for exoplanets in orbit around 200,000 nearby bright stars, with a particular interest in identifying small planets. Astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian are part of the scientific team to analyze TESS data, as well as performing follow-up observations. The relative closeness of worlds in the TESS survey will allow astronomers to even study some of their atmospheres, using the future Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and other observatories. TESS observational program is complementary to NASA’s long-running Kepler/K2 mission, and could identify as many as 20,000 new exoplanet orbiting a wide variety of star types.

Visit the TESS Website