Study co-author Andrzej Udalski, principal investigator of the Optical Gravitational Lens Experiment (OGLE) project run by the University of Warsaw in Poland.
The tiny rogue planet is the smallest free-floating alien candidate https://t.co/NCPKgJBb4h pic.twitter.com/v0xbu83h66
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1; SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) October 29, 2020
While astronomers have discovered 4,000 alien planets so far – and there may be more spoof planets out there than many with host stars – the discovery of a spoof planet It seems more difficult because there is no light from a host star for scientists to help detect the planet.
Project OGLE, using the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, discovered the rogue planet using a technique called gravitational microlensing.
As Space.com explains, this planet-hunting method, “involves seeing objects in the foreground pass in front of distant background stars. When this happens, the closer object there is.” can act as a gravitational lens, bending and magnifying the star’s light in ways that can reveal the foreground subject’s mass and other characteristics. “
The lead author of the study, Przemek Mroz at the California Institute of Technology, explained how “extremely thin” the likelihood of such a microlensing event occurring as it requires perfect coupling between the light source, the lens. prospect and observer. “If we were to look at only one source star, we would have to wait nearly a million years to see the source be microfilm,” Mroz said.
For more science, read evidence of a parallel universe where time goes back, a cosmic cloud with some claiming “Galactus is coming!”, NASA’s Discovery of Water on the moon, a black widow star is the source of gamma radiation, the terrifying 50-50 chance that we are actually living in a simulation and watching footage of the Osiris-Rex probe touch down one small planet.
