And the universe became a little more interesting
Surely by now for all of us astronomy enthusiasts, the knowledge and evidence about extra-solar (or outside our Solar System) worlds is well documented, with the ever growing list of world presently topping 350. Well now Italian scientists have announced the first extra-galactic world ever discovered. Whoa..
The National Nuclear Physics Institute in Italy used a method of gravitational lensing called microlensing, which is the bending of light by an object smaller than large stars or other massive space objects, to find the world, located in the Andromeda galaxy, some 2.2 million light years away. They believe the discovered world is "six or seven times as big as Jupiter and orbits a small star, roughly half the size of the Sun". Most likely what was meant is the world is six or seven times the mass of Jupiter and not literally six or seven times the diameter (the article is translated from Italian). Usually when an object falls into around 11 times the mass of Jupiter, it contains enough mass to become a low-end Brown Dwarf, so this is almost as massive as an actual planet can be. It was though it's incredible mass (and corresponding gravity) that allowed the world to be detectable by microlensing.
Personally cannot wait until the first Earth like world is discovered.
The National Nuclear Physics Institute in Italy used a method of gravitational lensing called microlensing, which is the bending of light by an object smaller than large stars or other massive space objects, to find the world, located in the Andromeda galaxy, some 2.2 million light years away. They believe the discovered world is "six or seven times as big as Jupiter and orbits a small star, roughly half the size of the Sun". Most likely what was meant is the world is six or seven times the mass of Jupiter and not literally six or seven times the diameter (the article is translated from Italian). Usually when an object falls into around 11 times the mass of Jupiter, it contains enough mass to become a low-end Brown Dwarf, so this is almost as massive as an actual planet can be. It was though it's incredible mass (and corresponding gravity) that allowed the world to be detectable by microlensing.
Personally cannot wait until the first Earth like world is discovered.