Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Exoplanet Found In Old Hubble Image

Posted by Soulskill on from the old-but-new dept.

Kristina at Science News writes "A new way to process images reveals an extrasolar planet that had been hiding in an 11-year-old Hubble picture. After ground-based telescopes found three planets orbiting the young star HR 8799, a team took that information and reprocessed some 11-year-old Hubble Space Telescope images. Voila. There was one of the three planets, captured by Hubble but not visible until new knowledge could see the picture in a fresh light. The technique could reveal hidden treasures in many archived telescope images." For reference, the first exoplanet to be (knowingly) directly imaged was 2M1207_b in late 2004.

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Its a predator planet! by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its camouflage just broke for a minute!. I say we leave it well alone!

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  2. Hmmm... by DamienRBlack · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is so ironic -- we just found Hubble in our old exoplanet image. You little humans have come so far. You should be proud, at least for the next 40 hours...

    Sincerely,
    The Hostile Aliens

  3. Re:I wonder ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... how many other unknown things are hiding in those old images.

    Hey, I found Waldo!