Planet six times the mass of Jupiter 'spotted' by astronomers
The scientists used a new method of viewing space called microlensing. The method uses a nearer object to bend the light of a distant star when the two align with an observer.
Dr De Paolis, one of the researchers, said he was "encouraged" by the possibility of detecting planets at such phenomenal distances.
"The interesting thing is that the technology is in place to truly see planets of Jupiter's mass and even less in other galaxies," he said. "It's an exceptional thing."
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- slagface
- added this
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Hmmm if they can bend light then surely they can bend it round on itself creating a timewarp? Then again if they could do that then someone would've come back from the future to tell us all about it I suppose?
Still planets are cool!
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- bubbeemonkey
- 5 months ago
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I'm really happy to find this out, but aside from the article talking about microlensing, they tell us nothing about what galaxy this planet is in, exactly how far away it is, or what its mass is. Disappointing!
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- lolitanimatronic
- 5 months ago
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If it was just spotted, does it mean it just got there somehow or it has been there already...
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- Curiousdave
- 5 months ago
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l love it. There's probably other planets that are ten times the size of that one out there too.
There's abundant life all over this universe.
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- keithponder
- 5 months ago
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It is likely that there are BILLIONS of exoplanets just within the Milky Way (our galaxy), we have only found 353 of these exoplanets, and these losers are already talking about the next galaxy.
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awesome that were just starting to see whats on the other side ... what ever side that may be. make you wonder what else they ll find , this is kool
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I'm wondering how they missed something six times larger than Jupiter in the first place?
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this is a really cool story; outer space is so mind boggling.
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I wonder if there is a restriction of how big a planet can get. This is really cool though, I enjoy hearing about new finds in this universe of ours.
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- Skyscraper08
- 5 months ago
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Wait... does 6 times the mass necessarily mean 6 times the size? How can they tell what the mass is? I'm confused.
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- banditalamode
- 5 months ago
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bandit: mass does not equal size. Size would be diameter, or area. Something very small could be also very massive.
They can determine mass through the magic of SCIENCE.
But to answer your question, mass creates a gravitational field which affects light. I *believe* they can determine mass by observing the way light behaves in relation to the object.
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Why are there no Carl Sagan imitations? Why are people saying "billions of planets" instead of "billions and billions of planets" - that's the real mystery.
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This is very exciting... I wonder if there is life on other planets it is highly probable if the planet had the right conditions... (water, gases, temperature). Hopefully the treat each better than we do.
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Space. The boring frontier. Just kidding. Time to blast some aliens.
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- Panzer_Tanzler
- 5 months ago
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The GAS[giant] is out there. ( I guess thats true.)
---how much for the postcard?--- -
Absolutely unbelievable......
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- Skyscraper08
- 5 months ago
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