The first planets beyond the Milky Way may have been discovered

The "rogue" worlds are said to be located 3.8 billion light-years away.</s>The study, published February 2 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, gives the first evidence that more than a trillion exoplanets could exist beyond the Milky Way.

Beyond Our Galaxy

Using information from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a planet detection technique called microlensing to study a distant quasar galaxy , scientists at the University of Oklahoma found evidence that there are approximately 2,000 extragalactic planets for every one star beyond the Milky Way. Some of these exoplanets are as (relatively) small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not tightly bound to stars, so they're actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars.

"We can estimate that the number of planets in this [faraway] galaxy is more than a trillion," says Xinyu Dai, the astronomy and astrophysics professor who led the study.

View Images A microlensing image highlights possible exoplanets beyond the Milky Way. Courtesy of the University of Oklahoma

Microlensing works like magnification, says co-author Eduardo Guerras. It's a highly nuanced process that looks at frequencies emitted by moving celestial objects, meant to observe how they distort and magnify light that comes in from the objects near them. This light then illuminates things that aren't otherwise visible.

"This microlensing is amplifying something that is very small and changing colors, which makes no sense," Guerras says, "or it's amplifying a small region of a bigger object and that object has different colors."

Since these objects are so distant—the extragalactic bodies are some 3.8 billion years away—microlensing is the only way to get a sense of their shape. The researchers know they're looking at planets because of the speed at which they're moving.

"You can have this effect with stars, but it would be much, much less likely. It would be way less frequent," Guerras says. "If you have only one planet, the chances of observing it twice is astronomically small."

In Search of Exoplanets

Solar System 101 How many planets are in the solar system? How did it form in the Milky Way galaxy? Learn facts about the solar system's genesis, plus its planets, moons, and asteroids.

Considering the scale, detecting exoplanets can be tricky. Directly viewing exoplanets within the Milky Way is nearly impossible, so astrophysicists have to sift through data and use other detection techniques that give evidence of planet signatures. Normally, it takes multiple methods to confirm if there is actually an exoplanet out there, and in some cases, detections have turned out to be false positives.

"These stars are really far away. There's no way you can observe them by any [traditional] means," Guerras says.

The researchers are hoping that with the publication of their study, other scientists will pick up the data and develop another technique to verify whether or not these extragalactic planets exist.

"We hope other teams publish independent analyses to confirm our findings," Dai says. "I think this is a case where scientific discoveries can be triggered by the spark of ideas."

Extra on Exoplanets

Exoplanets have been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy in the past. In fact, 5,287 planets have been confirmed and thousands more could still be out there. Previous efforts have been databased and archived.

In our galaxy, there's about one planet around every star, which means that there could be up to a trillion planets in the Milky Way. Many of these exoplanets could be Earth-size.

Dai says the study opens up the new field of studying starless planets beyond our galaxy, and could help us compare free extragalactic exoplanets with their intragalactic counterparts.</s>Thousands of exoplanets, like the Kepler-11 system (pictured), have been found within the Milky Way, but a new study has spotted the first extragalactic exoplanets some 3.8 billion light-years away(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

As of January 2018, well over 3,500 planets have been confirmed from outside our Solar System, and that number is constantly growing. All of these have been spotted within our neighborhood of the Milky Way, but with numbers like that it was basically a given that planets were pretty common across the universe. Now astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma (OU) have confirmed that assumption with the first detection of extragalactic exoplanets.

A couple of candidates for planets beyond the Milky Way have been detected before, but so far none have been confirmed. There's a suspicious-looking anomaly in our galactic neighbor Andromeda, but studies are ongoing. In 2010 a planet dubbed HIP 13044 b was "discovered" about 2,000 light-years from Earth, and while it was initially believed to have originated in another galaxy before being swallowed up by the Milky Way, a later study found no evidence that the planet existed at all.

Detecting exoplanets anywhere is no easy feat, thanks to the vast distances involved. Even within our home galaxy, the farthest planets found so far are SWEEPS-04 and SWEEPS-11, which are about 27,000 light-years from Earth – that's only about a quarter of the width of the Milky Way. Most exoplanets are found through the "transit method", where telescopes like Kepler watch for dips in the brightness of stars that indicate planets have passed between them and us. Unfortunately, our most advanced telescopes have a limit on how far they can see, so to peer deeper into the universe astronomers need to pull out some other tricks.

Gravitational lensing is one such technique. Massive objects like black holes and galaxies can curve the fabric of spacetime so much that light bends as it passes by, and astronomers use these objects as "lenses" to study extremely distant stars, galaxies and supernovae. Microlensing applies this phenomenon in reverse, using a bright background light source to study the characteristics of the "lens" object itself.

In this case, the light source was a distant quasar, and the OU team used it to spot exoplanets in the lensing galaxy. Objects can have distinct signatures in the way they bend light, allowing scientists to characterize their size and mass. Functionally, it works in a similar way to the transit method, except it can be applied at much greater distances – this galaxy, for example, lies over 3.8 billion light-years from Earth, making these exoplanets the most distant ever detected by a gigantic margin.

The researchers examined data gathered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and after calculating the models on supercomputers, they were able to identify the signatures of around 2,000 objects, ranging in mass from that of the Moon to that of Jupiter.

"We are very excited about this discovery," says Xinyu Dai, lead researcher on the study. "This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy. These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analyzed the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass."</s>New Delhi: As scientists attempt to gain a better understanding of the solar system and search for those existing beyond our own, they have often made incredible discoveries, especially those in the form of numerous exoplanets that mimic the ones in our own solar system.

Now, for the first time, a population of planets beyond the Milky Way galaxy has been discovered by a team of astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma.

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers used microlensing to detect the objects in extragalactic galaxies that range from the mass of the Moon to the mass of Jupiter.

Microlensing is an astronomical phenomenon that uses the light bent by gravity itself to detect planets. It is a method capable of discovering planets at truly great distances from the Earth.

The planet population, ranging from the size of the Moon to the size of Jupiter, were spotted in a galaxy located 3.8 billion light-years away, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal.

"We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy," said Professor Xinyu Dai.

"These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analysed the high frequency of the signature by modelling the data to determine the mass," Dai said.

While planets are often discovered within the Milky Way using microlensing, the gravitational effect of even small objects can create high magnification leading to a signature that can be modelled and explained in extragalactic galaxies.

Until this study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, there has been no evidence of planets in other galaxies.

"This is an example of how powerful the techniques of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be," said Guerras.

"This galaxy is located 3.8 billion light-years away, and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario," he said.

"However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science," Guerras said.</s>For the first time, scientists have discovered a group of planets beyond the Milky Way, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

Xinyu Dai, an astrophysicist and professor at the University of Oklahoma in the United States, made the discovery using data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in space. Some of the planets spotted are the size of the moon, while some are as massive as Jupiter.

Dai told The Washington Post that as these planets are so far away – some 3.8 billion light years away – scientists cannot observe them through telescopes. So he and postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Guerras used Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity to find the galaxy beyond the Milky Way. Einstein’s theory posits that the force of gravity causes light to bend.

In this case, the scientists spotted the light from a quasar – the nucleus of a galaxy with a swirling black hole that emits an exceptionally large amount of energy. The galaxy’s gravitational force made the light heading towards the Milky Way bend and illuminated the galaxy in an effect known as microlensing.

The galaxy, Dai said, acts like a magnifying glass, bringing a previously unseen celestial body into X-ray view. “This microlensing is amplifying something that is very small and changing colors, which makes no sense, or it is amplifying a small region of a bigger object, and that object has different colours,” Guerras said.

“We can estimate that the number of planets in this galaxy is more than a trillion,” The National Geographic quoted Dai as saying.

The study was published on February 2 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.</s>Large objects in space tend to distort and magnify the light coming from objects behind them, allowing scientists to see things which would otherwise not be observable at all. This phenomenon is called gravitational lensing and using it, astrophysicists from University of Oklahoma (OU) have discovered, for the first time, planets outside the Milky Way.

Exoplanets — the name given to all planets outside our solar system — were first discovered in 1992, and thousands have been discovered since. But all those known exoplanets are inside our home galaxy. But Xinyu Dai and Eduardo Guerras from OU published a paper Friday in which they identify the presence of about 2,000 planetary mass bodies in a galaxy located 3.8 billion light-years away.

The galaxy they studied is a quasar, RXJ 1131-1231, which is thought to be a phase in the evolution of some galaxies. The supermassive black hole at its center wields an enormous amount of gravity, which causes gravitational lensing. The planets it revealed range in mass from the moon to Jupiter, and are likely unbound — they don’t orbit stars.

“We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy. These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analyzed the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass,” Dai explained in a statement.

The raw data for the observations came from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, a space telescope operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The microlensing models were made at the university. And the researchers stressed using a technique like gravitational lensing was the only way to make such a discovery.

“This is an example of how powerful the techniques of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be. This galaxy is located 3.8 billion light years away, and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario. However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science,” Guerras said in the statement.

The paper, titled “Probing Planets in Extragalactic Galaxies Using Quasar Microlensing,” appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Another paper, also published Friday by an international team of researchers, used gravitational lensing to set a new magnification record of sorts. With a massive galaxy cluster in the foreground, the scientists identified a distant galaxy, located about 22 billion light-years away, because it had been magnified 30 times.

“The very high magnification of this image provides us with a rare opportunity to investigate the stellar populations of this distant object and, ultimately, to reconstruct its undistorted shape and properties,” study coauthor Johan Richard from University of Lyon, France, said in a statement.

Similar magnification has been observed before, but why this one stands out is due to the nature of the background galaxy which was discovered. It is a quiescent galaxy, which means it doesn’t produce new stars and is therefore extremely faint. Considered the last of galactic evolution, quiescent galaxies are common even in the local universe.

“As we look at more distant galaxies, we are also looking back in time, so we are seeing objects that are younger and should not yet have used up their gas supply. Understanding why this galaxy has already stopped forming stars may give us critical clues about the processes that govern how galaxies evolve,” Mikkel Stockmann, another coauthor, from the University of Copenhagen, said in the statement.

The data for this study was taken from observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Titled “Thirty-fold: Extreme Gravitational Lensing of a Quiescent Galaxy at z = 1.6,” this study also appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The lead author was Harald Ebeling from the University of Hawaii.

Gravitational lensing is a very useful tool for studying distant objects in space, but it can also create problems for astronomers who study the Cosmic Microwave Background — the omnipresent radiation from soon after the Big Bang, one of the few things which allow us to study the universe in its infancy. The strong gravitational effects of various large objects in space complicates the observation of the CMB, and researchers have previously proposed a “delensing” method to overcome this encumbrance.</s>For the first time, scientists have discovered planets in galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, a team of astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma identified the extragalactic planets about 3.8 billion light years away. The space observatory helped scientists find about 2,000 objects with comparable mass to the Moon and Jupiter.

SCIENTISTS 'GOOGLED' DATA FROM NASA'S KEPLER SPACE TELESCOPE TO DISCOVER NEW PLANET

The Oklahoma University team used a technique called microlensing, which identifies the gravitational signature of planets orbiting extremely distant stars.

“We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy,” said Oklahoma University professor Xinyu Dai, in a statement. “These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analyzed the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass.”

Dai made the discovery with Postdoctoral Researcher Eduardo Guerras – their research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

ASTRONOMERS MAY HAVE DISCOVERED THE FIRST EXOMOON

Guerras said that the breakthrough highlights the power of the microlensing technique. “There is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario,” he explained in the statement. “However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science.”

The Chandra X-ray observatory, which was launched into space in 1999, is controlled by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

The Milky Way, the galaxy containing our solar system, has hundreds of billions of stars, according to NASA.

ALIEN LIFE LOOMS? NEWLY DISCOVERED EXOPLANET MAY BE BEST CANDIDATE, EXPERTS SAY

Other scientists have also published fascinating space research in recent years.

In a separate project, researchers announced last year that they may have spotted the first moon outside of our solar system. By harnessing data from the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers identified exomoon candidate Kepler-1625b. The moon, which is orbiting the star Kepler-1625, is approximately 4,000 light years away,

Also last year, scientists used data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope and machine learning technology from Google to discover a new planet outside of our solar system. Researchers identified Kepler-90i, a hot, rocky planet circling Kepler-90, a Sun-like star 2,545 light years from Earth.</s>Planets in galaxies beyond Milky Way spotted for first time

For the first time, scientists have discovered planets in galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, a team of astrophysicists from the University of Oklahoma identified the extragalactic planets about 3.8 billion light years away. The space observatory helped scientists find about 2,000 objects with comparable mass to the Moon and Jupiter.

The Oklahoma University team used a technique called microlensing, which identifies the gravitational signature of planets orbiting extremely distant stars.

“We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy,” said Oklahoma University professor Xinyu Dai, in a statement. “These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analyzed the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass.” – READ MORE

China is building a mega-laser that’s so powerful it could literally tear space apart.

Physicists in Shanghai are constructing what they call a ‘Station of Extreme Light’, which could be operational as soon as 2023.

The end goal is to create a laser so powerful it can produce 100-petawatt laser pulses –that’s 100 million billion watts.

For context, that’s 10,000 times the power of all the world’s electrical grids combined.

These ludicrously powerful pulses could be targeted at incredible precise spots measuring just three micrometers across – that’s 2000 times less than the thickness of a standard pencil.

This means the researchers could achieve a laser intensity 10 trillion trillion times greater than the sunlight striking earth. – READ MORE</s>Scientists have discovered something amazing. Though this has been theorized by many scientists over the past millennia, there is now proof that other planets exist outside our galaxy.

Xinyu Dai, an astrophysicist and professor at the University of Oklahoma, used data from a NASA X-ray lab in space to detect the very first group of planets that exist beyond the Milky Way galaxy, according to Washington Post.

The amazing discovery features a couple of planets that range in size from one that’s close to the Earth’s moon to bigger ones like Jupiter.

In the study published last Feb. 2 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Dai explores the process of finding stars and planets beyond the Milky Way. One of the key observations in the study is how these planets create a different relationship to moons that the ones we have in our galaxy. The exoplanets seem to be somehow independent of moons and stars “so they’re actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars.” Dai believes that this evidence will bring more exploration to the trillions of other exoplanets out there.

Dai’s co-author Eduardo Guerras noted that microlensing could just be one of the key steps in unraveling more exoplanets. Since these planets are about 3.8 billion light-years away, microlensing is the only tool scientists can use for now.

“This microlensing is amplifying something that is very small and changing colors, which makes no sense,” Guerras says, “or it’s amplifying a small region of a bigger object and that object has different colors.”

Dai and Guerras hope that their research study would pave the way for more scientists and scientific institutions to shift focus on discovering exoplanets.

According to National Geographic, the new discovery should also be a celebration of renowned genius Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Dai said they both relied on the theory to create a foundation for their study.

This then helped Dai and Guerras find a technique in using microlensing to find the planets.

However, scientists like David Bennett, a gravitational lensing expert at NASA, expressed skepticism and said that though the research is interesting, there could be a possibility that the data they found could be “interpreted in a way to suggest the objects were not extragalactic.”

Meanwhile, others praised their work and said that the data supports their premise and that these, indeed, are exoplanets outside the Milky Way.

“This discovery, if the interpretation of the data holds up, looks very exciting indeed,” Priyamvada Natarajan, a theoretical astrophysicist at Yale University, told NBC.</s>A team of scientists from University of Oklahoma has discovered for the first time a population of planets beyond the Milky Way galaxy. The planet population, ranging from the size of the Moon to the size of Jupiter, were spotted in a galaxy located 3.8 billion light years away, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal.

For the discovery, the team used a technique called microlensing – a method capable of discovering planets at truly great distances from the Earth. “We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy,” said Professor Xinyu Dai. “These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analysed the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass,” Dai said.

The researchers made the discovery with data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, a telescope in space that is controlled by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. While planets are often discovered within the Milky Way using microlensing, the gravitational effect of even small objects can create high magnification leading to a signature that can be modeled and explained in extragalactic galaxies. But until this study, there has been no evidence of planets in other galaxies.

“This is an example of how powerful the techniques of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be,” said postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Guerras. “This galaxy is located 3.8 billion light years away, and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario,” Guerras said. “However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science,” Guerras said.

For all the latest Technology News, download Indian Express App
Scientists using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory discover new exoplanets in galaxies beyond the Milky Way for the first time.