theatlantic:

In Focus: Hubble’s Hidden Treasures

Last March, the operators of the Hubble Space Telescope launched a competition, inviting amateur astronomers to dig into hundreds of thousands of images of outer space, helping discover hidden treasures and bring them to light. Yesterday, NASA and the European Space Agency announced the winners in both categories: image processing, where entrants composed their own images based on Hubble data, and image search, where entrants simply uncovered amazing images not previously released.

See more. [Images: NASA/ESA, Josh Lake, Andre van der Hoeven, Luca Limatola, Ralf Schoofs]