| Australasian researchers have helped discover a huge new
planet in the Milky Way galaxy. Using a new scientific technique,
Tasmanian astronomers have helped to detect a large planet, renewing hopes
of finding Earth-like planets. The large gaseous planet, called OB-05-071,
is between Earth and the centre of the Milky Way about 25,000 light years
away. The new scientific technique involves using the gravitational pull
of a star to act as a giant lens, providing a better chance to make out a
planet. This pioneering technique helped members of an international
collaborative team discover the new planet which is a thousand times
bigger than Earth. "It looks like a fairly extraordinary, massive planet,"
University of Tasmania Professor John Dickey told ABC radio. "But we know
many other planets around other stars, some of which are somewhat like
this. "What’s special about this event is, it was discovered in a way,
that is this gravitational lens method, which could, in principle, turn up
Earth-like planets as well. "Our other ways of finding planets around
stars are only sensitive to very massive ones like Jupiter. "We’ve been
struggling with this technique to try to open the door to finding
Earth-like planets, which I think is now much more hopeful." Professor
Dickey said the discovery was made through a kind of a chance
juxtaposition of a far-away star in our galaxy with another star, apparently with a planetary system,
which passed just in front of that background star. "Things like this
happen fairly often but it’s only just in the last few years that we’ve
known how to search for them," he said. "What transpires then, as the
foreground star with its planet, passes in front of, or in the direction
of the background star, is we see something which is called a
gravitational lens event. He said this was like an eclipse on Earth.
"Rather than one star blocking the light of the other, it magnifies the
light of the background star." |
