Latest Probing Lensing Anomalies Network Stories
[ Watch the Video ] Planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception An international team, including three astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), has used the technique of gravitational microlensing to measure how common planets are in the Milky Way. After a six-year search that surveyed millions of stars, the team concludes that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. The results will appear in the journal Nature on 12 January 2012....
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...
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....
