Exoplanets A planet the size of Earth is thought to fly alone in space, scientists have achieved an almost impossible observation – Pledge Times



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Probably an Earth-sized planet was found using Einstein’s calculations.

Our solar system planets orbit the Milky Way in an inch, strongly linked to the Sun’s gravity flame.

But there are also solitary planets in space that are not part of any planetary system. Some violent event pushed them out of their stellar orbit, and these planets travel alone in the dark space. They can hardly have a life.

Several of these solitary trips have been found, but now scientists have achieved a very difficult observation.

Led by Poland a group of scientists caught a glimpse of how a lone planet flying very far in space passed an even farther star in the background.

According to the researchers, it is likely to be a massive object on Earth or Mars.

These solitary planets are difficult to detect because they are really small and dark. They cannot be seen directly with a telescope. Observation is made possible by a phenomenon that Albert Einstein predicted in the theory of relativity.

As a planet or other object travels in space in front of a star, its gravity refracts the background light.

This distortion of light can be detected. The phenomenon is called a gravitational lens, and more specifically a microlensing lens, when it comes to observing objects smaller than the galaxy, such as stars and planets.

Developed by researchers video illustrates how a planet acting as a lens distorts the light of an underlying star. The study was published The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Observational data on millions of stars over the years.

“The phenomenon of microlenses detection is extremely unlikely, as the object, the observer and the lens must be almost perfectly aligned ”, says the study’s lead author, postdoctoral researcher Przemek Mróz Warsaw University in the newsletter.

Mróz calculates that if a similar event were detected by the observation of a single star, it would be necessary to wait a million years for the planet to pass properly. And that wouldn’t necessarily be the case anyway.

“We were either very lucky or there are a lot of these objects in our galaxy,” says Mróz Living Science blog.

With researchers Observational data on millions of stars over the years was now in use. In Chile, the Las Campanas Observatory telescope was aimed at the center of the Milky Way.

The Polish-US OGLE project found several exoplanets using this gravitational lens method. The name comes from the words Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. Coincidentally or not, lusting in English also means facing or bumping.

An unknown planet would be roughly the size of Earth in mass. Planets of this size can in fact be removed from their constellations during their formation, as the larger planets still seek their grooves and their turbulent gravity their orbits.

Under observation there is still a lot of uncertainty.

The size of the planet is unknown. We can’t even calculate your distance. The star distorted by the gravitational lenses the planet passed through is 27,000 light years away at the center of the Milky Way, but the planet itself is certainly much closer.

The planet, or suspect planet, received the title OGLE-2016-BLG-1928. The initial observation, therefore, was made in 2016.

The lens distortion caused by such a small object should last for a few hours, and the observation hit the nail on the head. The subject can be observed in less than 42 minutes. There is not much time to get a lot of information at that time.

To that extent, scientists were able to determine that there are no stars of their own in the vicinity of the planet, at least eight astronomical units away. An astronomical unit (AU) is equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

The observation could, in principle, also be explained by the animation of the underlying star. The star in front of which the object passed is a red giant. Sometimes, they produce large blast explosions. However, according to the researchers, the nature of the observation does not match this.

Perception it is exceptional and requires more guarantees, but the existence of such a planet would not be strange in itself. It was calculatedthat there could be billions of these lonely bums in our galaxy alone. Several have already been found.

In general, more than 4,500 exoplanets, or non-solar planets, are already known.

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