Posted on 12/30/2025 5:43:45 AM PST by Red Badger
Teen Discovers 1.5M Space Objects With AI | Image by Matteo Paz @matteopaz06/X A recently graduated high school student made an artificial intelligence breakthrough using retired NASA data, which led to a public recruitment pitch from the agency’s new administrator on social media, including a fighter jet ride.
The teenager from Pasadena, California, used AI to identify approximately 1.5 million previously unrecognized cosmic objects in archival NASA data. His work went viral on X, capturing the attention of senior space officials. This led to an informal public recruitment pitch from Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur recently appointed as NASA administrator.
An astronomy-focused X account posted on December 25 that Matteo Paz, then still a high school student, had uncovered millions of previously unrecognized space objects by applying a custom-built machine learning model to data from NASA’s retired NEOWISE infrared mission.
The post described how Paz analyzed roughly 200 billion infrared records during a research stint at Caltech’s Planet Finder Academy, under the mentorship of astrophysicist Davy Kirkpatrick, and identified faint signals that had been missed during prior human review.
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See new posts Conversation Curiosity @MAstronomers 🚨 A student in the US just discovered MILLIONS of new space objects.
The astronomy world was recently shaken by a discovery from an unexpected source: a teenager still in high school. Matteo Paz, a student from Pasadena, utilized archival data from NASA’s retired NEOWISE mission to bring 1.5 million invisible cosmic objects into the light.
During a stint at Caltech’s Planet Finder Academy, and mentored by astrophysicist Davy Kirkpatrick, Paz took a novel approach to data analysis. He built a unique machine learning model capable of sifting through a staggering 200 billion infrared records. In a span of only six weeks, his AI detected subtle patterns that human analysts had missed, identifying everything from distant quasars to exploding supernovas.
Paz’s findings were so robust that they earned him a spot in the prestigious The Astronomical Journal and a position as a research assistant at Caltech. His work does more than just populate star maps; it provides specific coordinates for the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate further. This breakthrough highlights a growing trend where fresh perspectives and AI tools allow young researchers to make historic scientific impacts from the classroom.
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Isaacman responded publicly on X, writing, “Matteo please apply to work at NASA and I will personally throw in a fighter jet ride as a signing bonus.”
Paz replied the same day with a photo of himself smiling and giving a thumbs up, captioned, “Where do I sign?” The exchange quickly circulated across social media and science news communities.
Matteo please apply to work at NASA and I will personally throw in a fighter jet ride as a signing bonus— Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) December 27, 2025
The discoveries attributed to Paz have been widely reported by other outlets, which described his work as leveraging AI to reveal celestial bodies that conventional analysis had overlooked, according to a report published by India Today.
The report said Paz’s findings were published in The Astronomical Journal and led to a research assistant position at Caltech, while also providing coordinates now being used to inform observations by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Paz’s background includes ongoing research roles at Caltech funded by Caltech and NASA, where he has analyzed hundreds of terabytes of astronomical data, according to his LinkedIn. He is also listed as the 2025 first-place winner of the Regeneron Science Talent Search and an incoming undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Isaacman, who was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed earlier this month, wrote on December 18 that as NASA administrator, he intends to “eliminate the bureaucracy that impedes progress and empower the best and brightest,” adding that every scientific breakthrough should inspire the next generation.
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There is hope for the younger generation..................
Cool.
There is definitely hope for younger engineers. I’m involved with First Robotics at the local high school. There are some brilliant ones moving about those halls. Last three years in a row our team took the top award in automation of the robot’s motion. They did that without mentor intervention.
Totally impressive!
Good for him! I hope this younger generation does fantastic things with AI.
Smart kid!
Congratulations on the First Robotics success. Incredibly reassuring that the students who CAN are getting to support to actually be able to achieve. May your buttons stay on as they strain to burst. Good work!
This is the kind of “young man” power we need. If he can stay focused and out of politics then good on him.
That sort of outcome is the extreme dream of most teenage inventors. Sometimes it happens with the creative arts, where a junior high student gets a recording contract, or in sports, where another student becomes part of a professional team.
More rare, such prodigies are found in areas of science and engineering. Such a student, along with their families, has to be ready to take the risk, and grab that opportunity to permanently advance their standard of living.
Bookmark
Way to go!
NASA collects a lot of data that seems to get a perfunctory look, and then gets archived. There’s probably all kinds of discoveries to be mined there.
Yeah, kinda like the FBI J6 Pipe Bomber data...........
Yes, there is a glimmer.
NASA must not be too concerned about the junk in space... i always thought it would return to earth and burn up.
why not send a magnetic satellite to collect it all and then burn that up into the atmosphere?
inquiring minds want to know.
A piece of metal travelling at several thousand miles per hour is not easily collected...............
And here I am proud of my daughter’s state winning spaghetti bridge, lol.
(Had the record mass/weight bearing ratio record.)
but aren’t the orbits degrading? why haven’t they “fallen” back to earth yet? if the satellite is traveling at the same speed, isn’t collection easier? An orbiting “roomba” should be able to suck up the debris along with a few foreign spy satellites.
The individual pieces of space junk are not all in the same orbit going in the same direction. It would be like trying to catch bullets in a battlefield. And yes they will all eventually fall to Earth and burn up but some may be up there for thousands of years..........
He’s not qualified because of his skin color. /s
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