As an example, consider the deflection of light by mass. This is a general relativistic effect wherein a large body causes light to not travel in straight lines. Deflection of starlight by the Sun was one of the first experimental tests of General Relativity. The successful detection overturned Newtonian mechanics and made Einstein famous.
This experiment was conducted about the Sun because, as the most massive object in the Solar System, the magnitude of the deflection is also greatest for the Sun, making it the easiest to detect. However, there's no reason why light would not be deflected by, say, Jupiter. Suppose a researcher, through very careful measurements, measures deflection of starlight by Jupiter. Are the results publishable?
On the one hand, the measurement is new, and it has not been done before.* On the other hand, it should not surprise anyone if the measured deflection matches theoretical predictions from GR, in fact it would be a major shock (of Nobel-winning magnitude) if it didn't match. Absent this major shock, then, I suspect most physicists will immediately lose interest in the details of the experiment.**
I've tagged the question with 'physics' because the example is from physics, although I'm also interested if something similar happens in another field.
*I don't actually know if it's been done before. If it has been done before, replace "Jupiter" with a lower-mass object like the Moon.
**To be a bit more technical, most physicists would expect deviations from General Relativity (if they happen at all) in the strong-field limit - that is, where gravity is very strong (e.g. around black holes). Going from the Sun to Jupiter is going in the "wrong direction", towards the weak-field limit.
