Subtracting starlight finds hidden planet

Stars shine with such extraordinary brightness that their glare overwhelms nearby planets’ faint glow.

Now, a Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists has developed a new computational technique that cuts through the glare — revealing planets previously hidden from view.

This visualization demonstrates the image processing method, called FLIP, as it subtracts starlight from a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observation of star 51 Eridani A (51 Eri) in the F430M filter. Starlight subtraction proceeds with the iteration number shown in the lower left, eventually revealing the faint planet 51 Eri b at its expected location.

Visualization credit: Rodrigo Ferrer-Chavez.
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