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Gravity-Bent Starlight Reveals a New Planet

Posted by michael on from the ICU dept.

dfab writes "The first experimental proof of Einstein's general theory has been revamped to discover planets around distant stars. Yesterday astronomers announced that a new technique called gravitational microlensing has found a star that hosts a roughly Jupiter-sized planet in a roughly Jupiter-sized orbit by observing its effect on the light from a bright star beyond that planetary system. See the NASA report or the gory details."

2 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting by hords · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This image from the "gory details" gives you a quick understanding of what they mean. Pretty cool that they use one star to see the planet around another star.

  2. More Info by mizidymizark · · Score: 5, Informative

    Space.com also had an article about this yesterday. It gives a little better timeline to when it will be available to check low mass stars in the future, as well as doing a comparision on other extrasolar planetary detection techniques.