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Scientists May Have Discovered the First Planets Outside the Milky Way (washingtonpost.com)
Using data from a NASA X-ray laboratory in space, Xinyu Dai, an astrophysicist and professor at the University of Oklahoma, detected a population of planets beyond the Milky Way galaxy (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The planets range in size from Earth's moon to the massive Jupiter. From the report: There are few methods to determine the existence of distant planets. They are so far away that no telescope can observe them, Dai told The Washington Post. So Dai and postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Guerras relied on a scientific principle to make the discovery: Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Einstein's theory suggests light bends when tugged by the force of gravity. In this case, the light is coming from a quasar -- the nucleus of a galaxy with a swirling black hole -- that emits powerful radiation in the distance. Between that quasar and the space-based laboratory is the galaxy of newly discovered planets. The gravitational force of the galaxy bends the light heading toward the Milky Way, illuminating the galaxy in an effect called microlensing. In that way, the galaxy acts as a magnifying glass of sorts, bringing a previously unseen celestial body into X-ray view. In a university news release, Guerras had a less formal way to describe the complicated process: "This is very cool science."
Many of us are so jaded and cynical these days, yet no matter how you look at it, this is indeed very impressive. It is like standing at the coast in France and noticing a butterfly in New York. Very cool.
"Until we can go there" would be the same fallacy as saying electrons are not science until we can see them with our naked eye. Confidence in theories comes in a continuum, not some binary threshold. In this case, there is quite a history of microlensing studies, which did include hypotheses about what would be seen. The results are not as certain as the existence of the electron, but a lot more so than some math thrown together without new evidence.
That's - that's ACTUALLY far out, dude.
In order to take advantage of that without some unforeseeable technology, you'd need to do some rather extreme things though.
Not just planning hundreds of thousands of years in advance, but planning across many, many kinds of entropy that we're not used to engineering around - and even then, you'd be very limited with what you could do.
The most hard-sci-fi solution I can think of to get through such a puzzle would be genetically engineering a culture of bacteria-sized critters to live in minimal-metabolism cycles (think water bears) for the long, long period between galaxies, until they sensed a solar body warming them up again. Then, they'd wake up to their their DNA-triggered-payload, and break through a seal to a block of stable metals and, start carving out circuits and shells for nanobots. Those nanobots would work with the organic components to make solar cells, harvest rocks, gather resources.
Eventually, they'd look for home galaxy signals, looking for an extensively protected series of keys and protocols to 3d-print further updates from home, until they can eventually become a hub to print people (or equivalent, given the timeframe) to live on what worlds are discovered, of what habitats can be built.
Anything like a modern machine just wouldn't make it there, and would be useless by the time it was in place, you'd kind of need a generic programmable platform to bootstrap what will actually be useful by that time. You have to have something that makes information from our future mean something in these far-off vistas, a foothold.
Ryan Fenton
The picture that goes with the story is pretty, but carries no actual information about the planets that were detected. The story also gives the impression that the planets were actually imaged thanks to microlensing, which I donâ(TM)t think is true. Does anyone have access to the original AJL article?
My understanding (from the OU press release and abstract) is that they analyzed the high frequency fluctuations of atomic line energy shifts of the lensed light to determine that there were small, fast moving objects in the galaxy. They modeled those fluctuations to determine planets in the size range of moon to Jupiter were consistent with what they saw.
If thatâ(TM)s correct, then what theyâ(TM)re able to do here is impressive. Theyâ(TM)re claiming to be able to identify the presence of small objects based upon their contribution to the lensing from a much larger parent object.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
They have actually tapped into God's wrath, which we model mathematically as "electrons".
Incidentally, you can really piss off God by rubbing a balloon on your head.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You can find a freely available copy of the paper at this location:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.000...
Your summary of the paper is correct.
Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu