EDINBURGH, Scotland, April 15 (UPI) -- Scottish astronomers said Thursday they used cosmic magnifying effects to reveal a planet orbiting a distant star.
The process is called gravitational microlensing, in which a star or planet can act as a cosmic lens to magnify and brighten a more distant star lined up behind it. The gravitational field of the foreground object bends and focuses light of the more distant object, just as a glass lens bends and focuses starlight in a telescope. Albert Einstein predicted this effect in his theory of general relativity and confirmed it with the sun.
"The real strength of microlensing is its ability to detect low-mass planets," said Dr. Ian Bond of the Institute for Astronomy in Edinburgh, Scotland. He said the discovery was made possible through cooperation between two international research teams.
The newly discovered star-planet system is 17,000 light-years away, in the constellation Sagittarius. The planet, orbiting a red dwarf parent star, is about one-and-a-half-times bigger than Jupiter, and the planet and star are three times farther apart than Earth and the sun.
