The first stellar body with the characteristics of the planet outside our galaxy is said to have been identified by NASA scientists.
While about 5.000 exoplanets have been recorded so far, ie bodies that revolve around the Sun but outside our planetary system, all without exception belong to our galaxy, known as the Milky Way.
However, the signal received by the Chandra X-Ray telescope from a possible planet comes from another galaxy, about 28 million light-years away from our own galaxy. This is the so-called Messier 51 galaxy.
The new discovery is based on stellar passages, where the passage of a planet in front of a star blocks some of the star's light and leads to a characteristic reduction in the brightness that telescopes can detect. In this way, thousands of exoplanets have already been identified.
Thus, the team of Dr. Rozan Di Stefano managed to locate the planet with the code M51-ULS-1.
With a mass 20 times that of the Sun, this planet appears to be in orbit around another neutron star or a black hole.
The researchers admitted that they would need more data to say with certainty that they had indeed discovered the first extraterrestrial planet. Unfortunately, the position of the potential exoplanet is such that it is not possible to make new observations in the next 70 years.
"The method we developed and applied is the permanent one that can be used today to discover planetary systems in other galaxies," she said. Di Stefano at the BBC from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the USA.
"This is a unique method, ideally suited for locating planets using X-rays at any distance we can measure the curve of light," he explained.
Kathimerini.gr