Astronomers Found Some New Images of Planet Formation in Alien Star Systems in Old Hubble Data

The Hubble Space Telescope’s life may be winding down, but it’s still got some fight left in it. Astronomers revisited some of Hubble’s old data with new image processing techniques, and they discovered that Hubble had captured some previously unknown photos of the formation of planets around distant stars.

So, take a look at what they found:

Hubble images on top. Illustrations below show the angles of the planetary discs.

Rémi Soummer, of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., and his team uncovered these images while applying new techniques to the vast amount of data stored in the Hubble archive. Previously, only 18 debris discs like these were known to surround stars in Hubble images, but Soummer’s team was able to add five more to that list.

Twenty three may not sound like a lot, but it’s a significant increase that will give NASA and astronomers a lot more data to go over when studying debris fields and how planets are formed.

Hubble has already outlived its intended lifespan to the point that the space shuttles that were intended to one day bring it back to Earth are no longer in use. Sadly, it’ll eventually shut down and make its descent to burn up in the atmosphere, but its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, will benefit from these imaging techniques—Soummer’s team is trying to get them adopted as standard practice on the new telescope.

The discovery of these shots just goes to show: Hubble shown us more about the universe than we’ve even been able to understand. It will eventually be gone, but never forgotten.

(via Gizmodo, image via NASA/ESA, R. Soummer, Ann Feild)

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