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We May Have Just Found The First Planet Outside Of The Milky Way
The Milky Way is a vast and expansive galaxy home to billions of planets — but according to a new NASA report, scientists may have just found the first one outside of it. On its own, the Milky Way sounds massive. It's around 13.5 billion years old, has a radius of over 52,000 light-years, and is home to anywhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. It's also the only known galaxy that's home to life, with that being our little home here on Earth.
In the grand scheme of things, however, the Milky Way is just a small speck in the entirety of space. As large and impressive as our galaxy is, it's just one of more than 100 billion other galaxies scattered all across the universe. Furthermore, continued advancements in technology suggest that number could be closer to 200 billion in the not-too-distant future. It's impossible to know with 100 percent certainty, but some researchers believe there could be 70 quintillion planets in our known universe.
It's virtually impossible that humans will ever be able to discover all of those planets, but humanity did take just take a considerable step forward in expanding our understanding of space beyond the Milky Way. Per a recent report from NASA, scientists believe they've discovered the first planet outside our galaxy. The planet resides in Messier 51 (better known as the Whirlpool Galaxy) and is estimated to be 28 million light-years away from Earth.
How Scientists Discovered This First-Of-Its-Kind Planet
How in the world did scientists pull off such an impressive discovery? It all has to do with powerful x-rays. Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a new research method, scientists studied stars in the Whirpool Galaxy and looked for transits. These are events when a planet moves in front of the star, blocks its light, and also blocks the x-ray. With these transits, scientists can roughly gauge the size and orbit of a planet passing by the star.
In the case of the planet discovered with this technique (currently known as M51-ULS-1), it's estimated to be the same size as Saturn and orbit its star "at about twice the distance of Saturn from the Sun." Before scientists can classify ULS-1 as an official planet, however, more data is needed to confirm the findings. That doesn't sound like a huge deal at first, but there's one big problem. The large orbit of ULS-1 means it'll be around 70 years before it passes in front of the star again. In other words, scientists need to wait several decades before making a similar observation.
Even with some lingering uncertainty, this is still an incredible achievement for the space and science communities. No other such discovery has ever been made, and now that this technique has proven effective, it could result in many more faraway planets being found in the near future. Rosanne Di Stefano, the head of this study, says this was all done in an attempt to "open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds." Even if ULS-1 is an incomplete subject, the possibilities this opens up are beyond exciting.
