WASHINGTON: Astronomers have detected signs of the first planet transiting a star outside of the Milky Way galaxy.
The unique discovery, led by Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, opens up a new window to search for exoplanets at greater distances than ever before.
Exoplanets, which are planets located outside the solar system, have been a source of help to understand the conditions beyond the system. Until now, astronomers have found all other known exoplanets and exoplanet candidates in the Milky Way galaxy, almost all of them less than about 3,000 light years from Earth. An exoplanet in M51 would be about 28 million light years away.
The possible exoplanet candidate is located in the spiral galaxy Messier 51 (M51).
“We are trying to open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds by searching for planet candidates at X-ray wavelengths, a strategy that makes it possible to discover them in other galaxies,” said Rosanne Di Stefano of the Centre for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts.— dpa
