Astronomers Make Incredibly Rare Detection of Earth-Like Planet 25,000 Light-Years Away

Science Alert ^ | May 12, 2020 | Michelle Starr

[SunkenCiv]

There may be multitudes of Earth-like planets sprinkled throughout the Milky Way galaxy, but they are not so easy to find. To date, only around a third of the over 4,000 exoplanets found and confirmed are rocky -- and most of those are within a few thousand light-years of Earth... So the announcement of a new rocky exoplanet is always exciting -- but this particular newly discovered rocky exoplanet is even more exciting yet... it's a whopping 24,722.65 light-years away from us -- which could make it the most distant Milky Way exoplanet discovered yet.

It's so distant, it's close to -- and might even be in -- the galactic bulge, the densely populated region in the centre of the galaxy...

Most of the exoplanets we know of have been detected using one of two methods. There's the transit method, which detects planets based in the regular, minuscule dips in starlight when an exoplanet passes in front of it; and there's the wobble method, which detects minuscule wobbling exerted on a star by the gravitational influence of an exoplanet.

But there's a third method, based on the predictions of general relativity: gravitational microlensing. Imagine two stars, one behind the other, and an observer (us) at some distance again. Rays of light from the rear star (the source) are slightly bent by the gravity of the closer star (the lens) as they pass by. This distorts and magnifies that source light -- hence, gravitational microlens...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SuperLuminal!

[PIF]

Iain M Banks (passed) Culture series:
Consider Phlebas (1987)
The Player of Games (1988)
Use of Weapons (1990)
The State of the Art (1991) short culture fiction collections
Excession (1996)
Inversions (1998)
Look to Windward (2000)
Matter (2008).
Surface Detail (2010)
The Hydrogen Sonata (2012)

Non-Culture but excellent:
Against a Dark Background (1993)
The Algebraist (2004).

Gene Wolfe (passed) - the last great writer of the English language:
The Book of the New Sun
The Shadow of the Torturer (1980)
The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
The Sword of the Lictor (1982)
The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)

The Book of the Long Sun
Nightside the Long Sun (1993)
Lake of the Long Sun (1994)
Caldé of the Long Sun (1994)
Exodus From the Long Sun (1996)

The Book of the Short Sun
On Blue’s Waters (1999)
In Green’s Jungles (2000
Return to the Whorl (2001)

The Urth of the New Sun (1987)

Many of the novels by both authors won or were nominated for awards

[PIF]

MORE very hard SF

Stephen Baxter
The Xeelee Series - not in order:
Raft
Timelike Infinity
Flux
Ring
Vacuum Diagrams
Making History & Reality Dust - a short novel,
Riding the Rock
Mayflower II
Destiny’s Children:
—Coalescent
—Exultant
—Transcendent
—Resplendent
Starfall
Gravity Dreams
Xeelee: Endurance
Xeelee: Vengeance
Xeelee: Redemption

[Spacetrucker]

Thank you for the travel idea. Let me call up Jean-Luc, he owes me a favor 🤣