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Signs of first planet found outside our galaxy - BBC News
Oct 25, 2021 1 min, 42 secs

This new result is based on transits, where the passage of a planet in front of a star blocks some of the star's light and yields a characteristic dip in brightness that can be detected by telescopes.

Dr Rosanne Di Stefano and colleagues searched for dips in the brightness of X-rays received from a type of object known as an X-ray bright binary.

These objects typically contain a neutron star or black hole pulling in gas from a closely orbiting companion star.

The material near the neutron star or black hole becomes superheated and glows at X-ray wavelengths.

Because the region producing bright X-rays is small, a planet passing in front of it could block most or all of the X-rays, making the transit easier to spot.

This binary contains a black hole or neutron star orbiting a companion star with a mass about 20 times that of the Sun.

A neutron star is the collapsed core of what used to be a massive star.

Based on this and other information, the astronomers estimate that the candidate planet would be around the size of Saturn, and orbit the neutron star or black hole at about twice the distance Saturn lies from the Sun.

Dr Di Stefano said the techniques that have been so successful for finding exoplanets in the Milky Way break down when observing other galaxies.

With X-rays, she said, "there may be only several dozen sources spread out over the entire galaxy, so we can resolve them.

In addition, a subset of these are so bright in X-rays that we can measure their light curves.

"Finally, the huge emission of X-rays comes from a small region that can be substantially or (as in our case) totally blocked by a passing planet.".

Dr Di Stefano said that the new generation of optical and infrared telescopes would not be able to compensate for the problems of crowding and dimness, so observations in the X-ray spectrum would remain the primary method for detecting planets in other galaxies.

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