Do you think you know the
Milky Way? You don't know the Milky Way. This new galaxy map from
NASA shows the exoplanets we've discovered so far, including the newly
confirmed exoplanet 13,000 lightyears away from us, catchily-named
OGLE-2014-BLG-0124L. It's about half as far away as the furthest exoplanet ever
discovered, one of only a few handful to be discovered beyond Kepler's range.
The majority of exoplanets
that have been found were the work of the Kepler, but the very furthest ones
that have been found — like this newest one — owe their discovery to
microlensing techniques.
Like gravitational lensing, where gravity warps space
and light to create a natural "zoom lens" that lets us see further
afield, microlensing also makes use of naturally occurring distortion in space.
In microlensing, however, that magnification process is caused by a fainter
star passing in front of a more distant star, making the space around the
distant star more easily visible.
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