Scientists from Vilnius University's Faculty of Physics, together with their colleagues from Poland and other countries, have identified an exoplanet – a gas giant located far from the Galactic Center, the university reports on Monday.
This is only the third such discovery in the entire history of observations, VU said, adding that it used microlensing that made the findings unique.
The phenomenon that hinted at the location of planet, named AT2021uey b, was first observed in 2021.
The scientists were able to determine that it is a gas giant located 3,262 light-years away, with a mass that reaches 1.3 times that of Jupiter. It orbits around a so-called M dwarf – a relatively small and cool star, completing one orbit every 4,170 days.
Their unusual size ratio also contributed to the planet’s discovery – detecting an Earth-type planet would have been much more difficult.
According to the scientist, the collaboration and discovery itself happened almost by chance. It all began during a visit to colleagues at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw.
One of the method’s enthusiasts, Prof Lukasz Wyrzykowski, suggested preparing a joint Polish-Lithuanian project. His idea was simple – to analyse data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia telescope, verify it, and supplement it with ground-based observations. The telescopes at VU’s Molėtai Astronomical Observatory were suitable for this purpose.
The results of the observations have been published in one of the most prestigious astronomy journals, Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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