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AI Trawl of Hubble Archive Uncovers 1,300 Cosmic Anomalies, Including 800+ Never Documented

The vetted catalog from ESA’s AnomalyMatch scan now steers astronomers toward rare targets for detailed follow-up such as gravitational lenses.

Overview

  • AnomalyMatch processed nearly 100 million Hubble Legacy Archive cutouts in about two and a half days, producing a ranked list of unusual sources.
  • Expert review confirmed roughly 1,300 true anomalies, more than 800 of which had not appeared in the scientific literature.
  • Most finds are galaxies in mergers or interactions, with additional examples including gravitational lenses, jellyfish systems, clumpy galaxies, and edge‑on planet‑forming disks.
  • The study highlights dozens of objects that defy current classification and flags 86 candidate new gravitational lenses for further investigation.
  • The work marks the first systematic anomaly hunt across Hubble’s archive, is published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and is positioned for use with Euclid, Rubin, and NASA’s Roman Telescope.