The Chandra X-ray telescope, operated by NASA, has uncovered evidence of what could be the first planet discovered outside our Milky Way galaxy. The probable signal was identified in the Messier 51 galaxy, which is around 28 million light-years from Earth. The Chandra Observatory was built to detect X-ray emissions from extremely hot locations like as exploding stars, galaxy clusters, and materials surrounding black holes. It recently observed a typical brightness decrease that occurs when a planet passes in front of a star, blocking some of its light. Thousands of “exoplanets” — worlds orbiting stars beyond the Sun — have been discovered using this method.
Dr. Rosanne Di Stefano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge and her colleagues led the study. According to a press release, the scientists used ground- and space-based telescopes to check for “dips in optical light, electromagnetic radiation humans can see, enabling the finding of millions of planets.”
A transiting planet travelling over Earth’s line of sight could momentarily block most or all of the X-rays since a possible planet is close in size to the X-ray source orbiting the neutron star or black hole. The transit lasted around three hours in the most recent observation, during which time the X-ray emission dropped to zero. As a result, the scientists anticipate that the candidate planet will be about Saturn’s size.
Dr. Di Stefano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, US, said, “The method we created and deployed is the only currently implementable method to identify planetary systems in other galaxies.”
The researchers concede that what they discovered could be a planet, but that additional data and research is needed to be certain. The fact that the candidate planet has a large orbit presents a problem. It signifies that after 70 years, the item will cross its binary mate again. Clouds of gas and dust could also be to blame for the decrease in brightness. This possibility was investigated by the researchers, but they found that it was implausible because other criteria do not match such an event.