Astronomers may have discovered the first planet in another galaxy — thought to be six or seven times the size of Jupiter.
A team of researchers from the University of Zurich in Switzerland found what is believed to be a planet in the Milky Way's neighbouring galaxy, the Andromeda, the New Scientist magazine reports.
In order to find the celestial body, located more than two million light years away, the astronomers used a method called gravitational microlensing.
The technique, which has already helped find several planets in our own galaxy, involves measuring how a star is briefly magnified by the gravity of an object orbiting around it.
The study's leader Philippe Jetzer and his team built a computer model to see how large planets affect the light from stars in the Andromeda.
Surprisingly, the results matched a set of observations from Andromeda made in an earlier study that Professor Jetzer took part in back in 2004.
"It plausibly could be a planet," an Ohio State University astronomer told New Scientist.
But microlensing events occur randomly, so it may be a long time before the find can be verified.
Front page
RSS Feed