Hubble discovers distant exoplanet's star
Posted: Fri, Aug 11, 2006, 8:37 AM ET (1237 GMT)
A distant extrasolar planet discovered three years ago has now been matched up with its parent star, astronomers reported this week. the planet was discovered in 2003 through a technique called microlensing, where the gravity of a foreground star magnifies the light of a background star when the foreground star passes directly between the background star and the Earth. That magnification turned up the existence of a small companion to the background star believed to be a planet orbiting that star. The identity of the background star could not be determined, though, until the Hubble Space Telescope observed the region and was able to distinguish the star from the foreground microlensing star. the star, called OGLE-2003-BLG-235L/MOA-2003-BLG-53L, is a red dwarf with 63 percent of the mass of the Sun and is approximately 19,000 light-years away. Based on that data, astronomers determined that the exoplanet's mass is about 2.6 times that of Jupiter.
A distant extrasolar planet discovered three years ago has now been matched up with its parent star, astronomers reported this week. the planet was discovered in 2003 through a technique called microlensing, where the gravity of a foreground star magnifies the light of a background star when the foreground star passes directly between the background star and the Earth. That magnification turned up the existence of a small companion to the background star believed to be a planet orbiting that star. The identity of the background star could not be determined, though, until the Hubble Space Telescope observed the region and was able to distinguish the star from the foreground microlensing star. the star, called OGLE-2003-BLG-235L/MOA-2003-BLG-53L, is a red dwarf with 63 percent of the mass of the Sun and is approximately 19,000 light-years away. Based on that data, astronomers determined that the exoplanet's mass is about 2.6 times that of Jupiter.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Wednesday, August 12
Firefly Now Targeting Next Alpha Flight By Year’s End
Aviation Week — 4:54 am ET (0854 GMT) 'Russian Starlink' Is Fast Becoming A Reality, There's Just One Problem For The Kremlin
Radio Free Europe — 4:52 am ET (0852 GMT) Firefly Aerospace Announces Extension of Multi-Launch Agreement with Lockheed Martin Through 2031
Firefly Aerospace — 4:50 am ET (0850 GMT) Firefly’s SciTec Awarded $94 Million U.S. Space Force Contract to Advance Ground-Based Radar Digitization Program
Firefly Aerospace — 4:49 am ET (0849 GMT) Registration Now Open for Spacepower Conference 2026
EINPresswire.com — 4:49 am ET (0849 GMT) |
