The results of the corresponding study were published in the Astrophysical Journal and describe a collaboration between astronomers using Spitzer and the ground-based OGLE telescope in Poland.
The study was conducted as part of the Polish-American OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) project to study dark matter using gravitational microlensing.
While microlensing can be used in addition to other planet-hunting instruments, such as the Kepler mission, it has one significant drawback: it cannot always accurately determine the distances to planets and stars being observed. Our sun is located in the galactic suburbs, two-thirds of the way from the center. If a planet orbits a nearby star, the brightness of that light will periodically fluctuate as it passes across the star's disk. This problem was solved using parallax techniques using the Spitzer telescope, located remotely from the ground-based Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
Yi's group was able to address these challenges thanks to the Spitzer telescope, which follows Earth's wake at a very large distance from our planet.
The gravitational microlens that allowed the new exoplanet to be explored lasted for 150 days.
As it turns out, this star is located 13 light-years away from us, toward the galactic center. Scientists plan to use microlensing to study 120 pre-selected points in the starry sky. Of the approximately 30 exoplanets discovered through microlensing, only half have been able to determine their distance from Earth.
Scientists continue their space exploration to determine how similar this exoplanet is to Earth and other objects in the Milky Way.
Astronomers use such flares to find and characterize planets up to 27000 light-years away in the center of our galaxy, where stellar intersections occur more frequently.
