Take this Intergalactic Planet Quiz to find out which planet you are. We update the quiz regularly and it’s the most accurate among the other quizzes.
Scientists discovered planets outside our galaxy for the first time. You read that correctly. However, reading that — or any of the other feverish headlines on the subject — fills the mind with possibilities. Where have all the fantastic new “extragalactic” planet images vanished to? Are any of them similar to Earth? And, of course, do these worlds support life?
But here’s the catch: scientifically, none of this amounts to much. It’s pretty apparent, isn’t it? Of course, planets exist in other galaxies. According to Eduardo Guerras of the University of Oklahoma, co-author of the research published in The Astrophysical Journal, it’s “interesting science,” not an explosive discovery.
Having said that, there are some interesting aspects to this discovery. The technology that enabled the discovery is known as “gravitational microlensing,” and it detects celestial objects by using bent light from distant sources. And now you know it’s also capable of locating these extragalactic planets. Over the last few decades, scientists have used gravitational microlensing to detect extra stars and planets within the Milky Way; this is the first time it has been employed beyond it.
Intergalactic Planet Quiz
However, it is not a game-changer for our knowledge of the larger cosmos. The method isn’t powerful enough to enable researchers to learn more about these planets than simply detecting their presence. “This galaxy is 3.8 billion light-years away, and there’s no likelihood of witnessing these planets directly, even with the biggest telescope one could imagine in a science-fiction scenario,” Guerras said in a press release. We’d have no idea if these planets were gushing water worlds or filled with microbes (or perhaps intelligent life). Yet. Also, you must try to play this Intergalactic Planet Quiz.
Researchers are working on new astronomical tools that will allow us to view further into space – and thus deeper into the history of our cosmos – than ever before. The planned James Webb telescope, which is set to launch in June 2019, will allow scientists to go back in time to the birth of galaxies. The telescope isn’t yet polished enough to provide additional information about these extragalactic planets, but it’s a step in the right direction. Future technology advances will undoubtedly bring us closer to truly remarkable discoveries. Until then, extragalactic planets are fascinating. What’s really cool is… Knowing what’s on them, like, actually.
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The potential alien world was discovered in an X-ray binary system, which is a type of star system that generates and emits X-rays and is often composed of a normal star and a collapsed star, such as a neutron star or a black hole.
Astronomers typically utilize what is known as the “transit method” to search for planets. Transits happen when a planet passes in front of its parent star, temporarily blocking part of it and generating a visible dip in the star’s light. Di Stefano and her colleagues used the same basic concept, but instead of optical light, they looked for changes in the brightness of X-rays emitted by the binary system in the Whirlpool Galaxy.
According to Di Stefano, the region that emits brilliant X-rays is relatively tiny, allowing transits that block most or all of the X-ray emissions to be detected.
“It’s a really clear signal,” she explained.
Di Stefano and her colleagues studied the transit for nearly three hours using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and they were able to estimate the object’s size since it totally obstructed the X-ray source. They believe the hypothetical planet is the size of Saturn and orbits its star far farther away than Earth does.
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