A Hubble Space Telescope Direct Imaging Investigation of Extrasolar Planets

We are analyzing archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope’s (HST) NICMOS infrared camera in order to search for extrasolar planets via direct imaging. The main challenge of identifying the faint signal of an extrasolar planet is the overwhelming glare of the parent star. We use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to digitally subtract light from the host star of a young, nearby planetary system, while keeping the light from a potential exoplanet intact. We also investigate the density of background field stars around our target to inform the possibility of our detected signal being a field star.