Friday, October 7, 2011

Finding More Exoplanets

Astronomers have developed yet another way to ferret out exoplanets. Applying new planet hunting techniques to old Hubble Space Telescope data, astronomers have already found two exoplanets in HST data that were missed in 1998 because they were overwhelmed by the glare of their parent star.

Astronomers intend to go through archived HST data of possibly 400 stars hoping to find new worlds. Candidates found in the historical record would have to be confirmed by fresh observations.

This new use of HST data is a reminder that Hubble will continue to make important contributions to science long after the telescope itself falls back to Earth.

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