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Hubble and sharks? What!?

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While you might not think that sharks and
the Hubble Space Telescope have a lot in common,

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it turns out they share an incredible bond!

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Astronomers needed a powerful tool for comparing
and matching star configurations,

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so physics professor Edward J. Groth invented
a pattern-matching algorithm

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to help map all of those stars!

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The Groth algorithm forms triangles between
every possible triplet of stars in an image.

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It then compares the triangles’ measurements
to those in other images to find matches.

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But what do stars have in common with sharks?
It turns out… Quite a bit!

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For years, conservation groups have been tracking individual whale sharks.

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This beautiful animal has been listed as vulnerable
to extinction so it’s important to know

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how many exist and where they go throughout
their lifespans.

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But tagging them is difficult, and often the
electronic trackers

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break after just a few months.

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There was another way. Conservationists could
comb through countless photographs of sharks

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and identify them by the distinctive white
spots on their skin, a marker as unique as

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fingerprints are in humans.

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But this was tedious and time-consuming work.
That’s when Hubble comes into the picture!

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Using a modified version of Groth’s algorithm,
instead of measuring the triangles made by

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stars, conservationists were able to measure

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the distance of the whale shark’s unique spots!

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Using this system, over 8,000 individual whale
sharks have been identified so far, providing

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continuing data that helps researchers learn
more about the lives and migration patterns

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of the threatened animal.

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So while the Hubble Space Telescope might
be way up above in space, and whale sharks

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are way down underwater, they both share this
jaw-some bond!

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[ FUN MUSIC ]