Latest Gravitational lensing Stories

By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON -- A new planet-hunting technique has detected the most Earth-like planet yet around a star other than our sun, raising hopes of finding a space rock that might support life, astronomers reported on Wednesday. "This is an important breakthrough in the quest to answer the question 'Are we alone?"' said Michael Turner of the National Science Foundation. "The team has discovered the most Earth-like planet yet, and more importantly, has demonstrated the...

NASA -- Using an armada of telescopes, an international team of astronomers has found the smallest planet ever detected around a normal star outside our solar system.The extrasolar planet is five times as massive as Earth and orbits a red dwarf, a relatively cool star, every 10 years. The distance between the planet, designated OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, and its host is about three times greater than that between the Earth and the Sun. The planet's large orbit and its dim parent star make its...

NASA -- As Albert Einstein developed his theory of general relativity nearly a century ago, he proposed that the gravitational field from massive objects could dramatically warp space and deflect light.The optical illusion created by this effect is called gravitational lensing. It is nature's equivalent of having a giant magnifying lens in space that distorts and amplifies the light of more distant objects. Einstein described gravitational lensing in a paper published in 1936. But he thought...

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, Rémi Cabanac and his European colleagues have discovered an amazing cosmic mirage, known to scientists as an Einstein Ring. This cosmic mirage, dubbed FOR J0332-3557, is seen towards the southern constellation Fornax (the Furnace), and is remarkable on at least two counts. First, it is a bright, almost complete Einstein ring. Second, it is the farthest ever found. "There are only a very few optical rings or arcs known, and even less so in which the...

Astronomers Using the VLT Discover Bright Cosmic Mirage Far Away ESO -- Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, Rémi Cabanac and his European colleagues have discovered an amazing cosmic mirage, known to scientists as an Einstein Ring. This cosmic mirage, dubbed FOR J0332-3557, is seen towards the southern constellation Fornax (the Furnace), and is remarkable on at least two counts. First, it is a bright, almost complete Einstein ring. Second, it is the farthest ever found. "There are only...

EDP -- Fifty years after his death, Albert Einstein's work still provides new tools for understanding our universe. An international team of astronomers has now used a phenomenon first predicted by Einstein in 1936, called gravitational lensing, to determine the shape of stars. This phenomenon, due to the effect of gravity on light rays, led to the development of gravitational optics techniques, among them gravitational microlensing. It is the first time that this well-known technique has...

Cambridge, MA -- For the first time, amateur and professional astronomers have teamed up to discover a new planet circling a distant star. The planet was detected by looking for the effect of its gravitational field on light from a more distant star, a technique known as microlensing. It is only the second world to be discovered using the microlensing technique. Gravitational microlensing offers the potential for detecting Earth-mass planets using existing or near-future technologies....

Very Large Telescope Finds Planet-Sized Transiting StarESO -- An international team of astronomers have accurately determined the radius and mass of the smallest core-burning star known until now. The observations were performed in March 2004 with the FLAMES multi-fibre spectrograph on the 8.2-m VLT Kueyen telescope at the ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile). They are part of a large programme aimed at measuring accurate radial velocities for sixty stars for which a temporary brightness...

The origin of dark matter in space might become clearer following the opening of a new multi-million-dollar telescope at Mt John tomorrow. The $7 million telescope, paid for by the Japanese government, has been installed in a purpose-built building funded by a Tekapo company, Earth and Sky Ltd, which will have access to the observatory for its tourism operation. The new telescope will be used for the microlensing observations in astrophysics (MOA) project -- an international collaboration...