NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope has find hints of what could be the first planet discover outside our Milky Way galaxy. The possible signal discover is locate in the Messier 51 galaxy, about 28 million light-years away from Earth.
NASA’s Chandra Observatory has been design in such a way that it can detect X-ray emissions from very hot regions such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes.
As it detected a characteristic dip in brightness that happens when a planet passes in front of a star and blocks some of its light.
This method has help astronomers discover thousands of “exoplanets” worlds orbiting stars beyond the Sun.
The research was head by Dr. Rosanne Di Stefano from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge and her colleagues.
Using telescopes ground and space-based the astronomers looked for “dips in optical light, electromagnetic radiation humans can see, enabling the discovery of thousands of planets”, as per press release.
Because a potential planet is close in size to the X-ray source around the neutron star or black hole, a transiting planet passing along Earth’s line of sight could temporarily block most or all of the X-rays.
The transit last about three hours, during which the X-ray emission decreased to zero.
Then the astronomers estimate the candidate planet would be around the size of Saturn.
The researchers admit what they have find can be a planet but more data and more study is required to be sure.
A challenge with that is the candidate planet has a large orbit.
This means the object would cross its binary partner again after 70 years.
One more possible explanation for the dip in light could be clouds of gas and dust.
The researchers consider this explanation but then conclude this was unlikely since other characteristics do not match with such an event.
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