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January 27, 2026<\/p>\n
1 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n AI reveals 800 never-before-seen \u2018cosmic anomalies\u2019 in old Hubble images<\/p>\n Scientists analyzed more than 100 million image cutouts from a Hubble Space Telescope archive and found hundreds of previously undiscovered objects<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n Six previously undiscovered astrophysical objects from an archive of Hubble Space Telescope data.<\/p>\n ESA\/Hubble\/NASA\/D. O\u2019Ryan\/P. G\u00f3mez\/European Space Agency\/M. Zamani\/ESA\/Hubble<\/p>\n The universe is so vast, and the difficulty of discovering all that there is out in the cosmos is so great, that one might as well count all the grains of sand in the Sahara. But now, with the help of artificial intelligence, astronomers have revealed more than 800 previously unknown \u201ccosmic anomalies\u201d hidden in archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n Researchers at the European Space Agency (ESA) developed an AI tool that sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts in the Hubble Legacy Archive, a collection of data from as early as 35 years ago. Incredibly, the AI took just two and a half days to run through the entire archive, a task that would have taken a human research team exponentially longer to accomplish.<\/p>\n Merging galaxies from Hubble\u2019s archive.<\/p>\n ESA\/Hubble\/NASA\/D. O\u2019Ryan\/P. G\u00f3mez\/European Space Agency\/M. Zamani\/ESA\/Hubble<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n The hunt turned up more than 1,300 \u201canomalous objects,\u201d including galaxy mergers, jellyfish galaxies (so named for their trailing tentacles of gas) and other unusual features. Among these were scores of possible gravitational lenses\u2014spots where a massive object, such as a galaxy, bends the light of a given source, such as another galaxy\u2014as well as dozens of other oddball objects that defied easy explanation. Of all the found objects, some 800 had never been described before.<\/p>\n A collisional ring galaxy from Hubble\u2019s archive.<\/p>\n ESA\/Hubble\/NASA\/D. O\u2019Ryan\/P. G\u00f3mez\/European Space Agency\/M. Zamani\/ESA\/Hubble<\/p>\n The work was published last month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.<\/p>\n In a statement, ESA data scientist and co-author on the paper Pablo G\u00f3mez said the AI approach could offer a model for exploring other space science archives. \u201cIt [shows] how useful this tool will be for other large datasets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 27, 2026 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm AI reveals 800 never-before-seen \u2018cosmic anomalies\u2019 in old Hubble images Scientists analyzed more than 100 million image cutouts from a Hubble Space Telescope archive and found hundreds of previously undiscovered objects By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron Six previously undiscovered astrophysical objects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[22522,5414,21167,1506,22521,572],"class_list":{"0":"post-42899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-anomalies","9":"tag-cosmic","10":"tag-hubble","11":"tag-images","12":"tag-neverbeforeseen","13":"tag-reveals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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