 Mini solar system discovered
using gravitational micro lensing
If
a new astronomical discovery is any guide, most extra-solar planetary
systems are a lot more like ours than recently thought. A
similar but miniature version of our own solar system was discovered in
2006 by an international team of 69 professional and amateur
astronomers.
 The newly discovered
system consists of two planets nearly the sizes of our own Jupiter and
Saturn around a red star about half the mass of the Sun. The two gas
giants, who's orbits are about half the size of their counterparts in
our solar system, are no place you would expect to find life as we know
it. However, smaller terrestrial bodies could be
orbiting undetected nearer to the star.
Describing
the technique used to make the discovery as “basic general
relativity 101,” the teams lead scientist, Professor Scott
Guida from Ohio State University, was somewhat surprised it worked so
well. According to Prof. Guida, this procedure needs a
near-perfect, one-in-a-million chance geometry to be successful, but
since there are apparently billions of stars in the galaxy all moving
around in space these alignments occur relatively frequently.
As Prof. Guida explains it, if light rays from a
very distant star pass near a nearer star on their way to us here on
Earth, but for some reason apparently are not blocked totally by it
because the second star maybe is smaller or something, the relative
gravity forces from that one in-between star sort of just, like, bends
the light rays of the first star, like a microscope lens giving it its
name, he said.
If the second star has
planets and stuff around it then the bending is a little different than
just if the star is just alone because their gravity force is
relatively different because they are in orbit maybe or block some more
of the light or something. Apparently, according to the
professor, planets around the first star do not matter at all and
neither does the relative gravity force of our own nearest star, the
Sun, which for some reason does not just gravity suck the whole light
ray in even though it is nearest to us here on Earth.
Calls to the university's tutor service to explain what the
professor was, like, talking about were totally not returned as of
press time.
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