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First *extra Galactic* planetary scale bodies observed


This headline


Significance?

So every so often I see a story that has me sitting at the keyboard for a few seconds...actually trying to make sure the story is not some kind of satire site because the headline reads immediately a nonsense.

This headline did just that.

So I proceeded to frantically click through and it appears it was a valid news item from a valid news source and my jaw hit the floor.

Many of you know that we've been finding new planets outside of our solar system for about 25 years now.

In fact the Kepler satellite and other ground observatories have been accelerating their rate of extra-solar planet discoveries in the last few years but those planets are all within our galaxy the Milky Way.

The three major methods used to detect the bulk of planets thus far are wobble detection, radial transit and this method micro lensing which relies on a gravitational effect that was predicted by Einstein in his general theory of relativity exactly 103 years ago.


But here's the thing...micro lensing which was found in very large massive collections of distant bodies distorting the light of even further distant galaxies and clusters...is also amazingly...a reliable way to detect bodies of much smaller mass than the massive distant galactic clusters.

And so here it is...the first planetary level reporting of extra Galactic bodies.

I am speechless.

The paper describing their rather elegant method, which is destined to be a seminal work...is here:






Comments

Unknown said…
Is this proof of alien existence?
July 19, 2019 at 4:30 PM
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