An analysis of the light curve of the microlensing event
PA-99-N2 suggests the presence of a planet orbiting a star in the Andromeda
Galaxy (2.54 ± 0.11 Mly).
In late January 2018,
a team of scientists led by Xinyu Dai claimed to have discovered a collection
of about 2,000 rogue planets in the quasar microlens RX J1131-1231, which is
3.8 billion light-years distant. The bodies range in mass from that of the Moon
to several Jupiter masses.[
The most distant potentially habitable planet confirmed is
Kepler-443b, at 2,540 light-years distant although the unconfirmed planet
KOI-5889.01 is over 5,000 light-years distant.
(Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exoplanet_extremes)
I can quite understand measuring the distances of whole
galaxies that lie at the edge of an Observable Universe by their red shifts.
But detecting a non- radiating planet in the Andromeda
Galaxy is a different thing. The ability
of detecting, observing, and measuring the presence of just a planet or a group
of them in another galaxy at such a horrendous distances mentioned above is
taking things to the extreme. One can hardly see individual stars in a distant
galaxy, let alone detecting planets orbiting around them.
This feat is truly remarkable to my feeble mind. My hats off
to those teams of astronomers
This is “light years” in the advancement of astronomy since
the last planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde William Tombaugh in in 1930
Cheers to all the astronomers!
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