Precovery

In astronomy, precovery (short for "pre-discovery recovery") is the process of finding the image of an object in old archived images or photographic plates for the purpose of calculating a more accurate orbit. This happens most often with minor planets, but sometimes a comet, a dwarf planet, a natural satellite, or a star is found in old archived images; even exoplanet precovery observations have been obtained. While the term "precovery" refers to a pre-discovery image, "recovery" refers to imaging of a body which was lost to our view (as behind the Sun), but is now visible again (also see Lost minor planets and Lost comets).