Hubble and sharks? What!?
While you might not think that sharks and the Hubble Space Telescope have a lot in common,
it turns out they share an incredible bond!
Astronomers needed a powerful tool for comparing and matching star configurations,
so physics professor Edward J. Groth invented a pattern-matching algorithm
to help map all of those stars!
The Groth algorithm forms triangles between every possible triplet of stars in an image.
It then compares the triangles’ measurements to those in other images to find matches.
But what do stars have in common with sharks? It turns out… Quite a bit!
For years, conservation groups have been tracking individual whale sharks.
This beautiful animal has been listed as vulnerable to extinction so it’s important to know
how many exist and where they go throughout their lifespans.
But tagging them is difficult, and often the electronic trackers
break after just a few months.
There was another way. Conservationists could comb through countless photographs of sharks
and identify them by the distinctive white spots on their skin, a marker as unique as
fingerprints are in humans.
But this was tedious and time-consuming work. That’s when Hubble comes into the picture!
Using a modified version of Groth’s algorithm, instead of measuring the triangles made by
stars, conservationists were able to measure
the distance of the whale shark’s unique spots!
Using this system, over 8,000 individual whale sharks have been identified so far, providing
continuing data that helps researchers learn more about the lives and migration patterns
of the threatened animal.
So while the Hubble Space Telescope might be way up above in space, and whale sharks
are way down underwater, they both share this jaw-some bond!
[ FUN MUSIC ]