THE first direct image of three extrasolar planets orbiting their host star was hailed as a milestone when it was unveiled late last year. Now it turns out that the had captured an image of one of them 10 years ago, but astronomers failed to spot it. This raises hope that more planets lie buried in Hubble’s vast archive.
In 1998, Hubble studied the star HR 8799 in the infrared, as part of a search for planets around young and relatively nearby stars. The search came up empty.
Last year, Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute…
