Janet's ass: The final frontier?

Hygiene, CO -- A group of astronomy enthusiasts in Colorado became the butt of jokes in the scientific community after laying claim to the discovery of a new galaxy that turned out to be pop singer Janet Jackson's buttocks.

The group, led by Abel Abraham, 24, uses a sophisticated computer program that picks up images from space transmitted to Earth by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Early Thursday morning, Abraham said he awoke to the frantic beeping noise coming from his computer which signaled that it had found something unique. What he saw after loading up the image was a blurry representation of "what could possibly be a starburst galaxy in its infancy, not unlike the NGC 4038/NGC 4039, also known as the Antennae Galaxies."

"The purported new galaxy is in fact Janet Jackson's ass," said De Castro's statement. "Although it is easy to mistake one for the other, Mr. Abraham should have known better than to hastily jump to conclusions."

"I've never seen anything like it before, and I was just awestruck," said the local barback and self-described Star Trek expert.

Abraham was so impressed by his computer's finding that he didn't bother to investigate further and decided to submit it to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a new galaxy discovery. He also published an exclusive report about it on his group's astronomy website, geekgalaxy.org.

Within minutes, Abraham's finding was debunked by a rival group of astronomers in California led by Castro De Castro, who published a scathing rebuke on his group's own website, thefinalfrontier.org.

"The purported new galaxy is in fact Janet Jackson's ass," said De Castro's statement. "Although it is easy to mistake one for the other, Mr. Abraham should have known better than to hastily jump to conclusions."

De Castro provided as proof photographs of the singer wearing a futuristic yellow catsuit decorated with shiny metallic striations taken during the opening night of her "Rock Wit Chu" tour in Vancouver, Canada. The blurry image picked up by Abraham's computer matches one of the images perfectly when enhanced.

Abraham said his computer could not have made the mistake, and that he had probably been the victim of a nasty, childish prank.

"I wouldn't put it past De Castro," stressed Abraham. "He's a Madonna fan."

Geek Galaxy has already removed the image and all references to it from their web site. The group has also sent a profuse apology to Janet Jackson for the error.

Neither Jackson nor her spokesperson could be reached for comment.