WEBVTT - Have We Found the First Planet Outside the Milky Way?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

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<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff Lauren bol Obam here for those interested

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<v Speaker 1>in space science or even science fiction. Astronomers have been

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<v Speaker 1>full of fascinating news in the past few years. As

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<v Speaker 1>technology improves, researchers have been able to discover even more

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<v Speaker 1>celestial objects than we ever imagined, from comets and asteroids

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<v Speaker 1>zipping through our Solar System to dark matter and planets

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<v Speaker 1>orbiting distant stars. Now we have evidence of planets far

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<v Speaker 1>beyond those we've ever discovered before. But all the planets

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<v Speaker 1>we found through our advanced technology have been within our

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<v Speaker 1>own Milky Way Galaxy until now. That is. In a

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<v Speaker 1>paper published in October one in the journal Nature Astronomy,

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<v Speaker 1>a team of astronomers and astrophysicists has put forth a

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<v Speaker 1>new planetary candidate farther away than we've ever seen before.

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<v Speaker 1>It's called Catcheley M fifty one U L S one

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<v Speaker 1>B and is located in Messier fifty one, also called

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<v Speaker 1>the Whirlpool Galaxy. While humans might never see or even

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<v Speaker 1>confirm the existence of this potential planet, even its theoretical

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<v Speaker 1>reality paves the way for more discoveries and the deep

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<v Speaker 1>reaches of space beyond anything yet discovered. So let's talk

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<v Speaker 1>about how we find planets. Four decades researchers have used

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<v Speaker 1>data from Earth based and orbital telescopes to find planets

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<v Speaker 1>beyond those in our Solar system, called exoplanets. Typically, researchers

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<v Speaker 1>look for a transit event, which is when the planet's

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<v Speaker 1>orbit takes it in front of its star. From our perspective,

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<v Speaker 1>transits occur in our Solar system too. You might recall

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<v Speaker 1>one of the most recent transits that occurred in twenty

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen when tiny Mercury passed in front of the Sun.

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<v Speaker 1>Depending on the size of the planet relative to the star,

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<v Speaker 1>a transit event will cause the star's brightness too dim,

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<v Speaker 1>even when the star doesn't emit light along the visible wavelength.

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<v Speaker 1>That's why the Chandra X ray observatory was used to

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<v Speaker 1>discover this new planetary candidate. In many cases, researchers are

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<v Speaker 1>able to observe the star dimming and surmise that a

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<v Speaker 1>planet must be orbiting that star or stars, as there

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<v Speaker 1>are circumbinary planets that orbit two stars. These planetary candidates

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<v Speaker 1>are put forward to the scientific community to verify with

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<v Speaker 1>additional data, and have resulted in more than four thousand

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<v Speaker 1>confirmed exoplanets. Up until this point, though every proposed exo

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<v Speaker 1>planet has been located within a small region of our

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<v Speaker 1>own galaxy, the Milky Way. What makes this new paper

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<v Speaker 1>compelling is the proposal that the researchers have a planetary

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<v Speaker 1>candidate outside the Milky Way. Way outside the Milky Way.

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<v Speaker 1>According to their research, the potential planet is an estimated

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<v Speaker 1>twenty million light years from Earth. They also proposed a

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<v Speaker 1>new term for such planets, extra planets. The researchers chose

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<v Speaker 1>to look outside our galactic neighborhood for two reasons. For

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<v Speaker 1>there's a better probability of discovering a planetary candidate using

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<v Speaker 1>an X ray transit technique, since the binary stars that

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<v Speaker 1>omit X rays are physically smaller and thus more likely

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<v Speaker 1>to be fully obscured when one of their planets transits

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<v Speaker 1>across them. The second reason was practical. The team had

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<v Speaker 1>access to use the Chandra X ray observatory at a

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<v Speaker 1>time when the observatory was pointed at an area of

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<v Speaker 1>space where there were lots of data points for the article.

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<v Speaker 1>This episode is based on how Stuff Work spoke with

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<v Speaker 1>Theoron Carmichael, one of the papers authors, speaking on behalf

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<v Speaker 1>of the team. He explained the focus outside of the

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<v Speaker 1>Milky Way was due to the number of X ray

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<v Speaker 1>sources within the field of view of the Chandra observatory.

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<v Speaker 1>This made things more convenient to observe by allowing for

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<v Speaker 1>a focus on one area of the sky and not

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<v Speaker 1>having to point the telescope in very different locations in

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<v Speaker 1>the sky. As of now, we're not aware of any

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<v Speaker 1>new exo planet candidates that orbit X resources in the

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<v Speaker 1>Milky Way. This technique is certainly applicable to X resources

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<v Speaker 1>within the Milky Way, and perhaps now scientists will be

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<v Speaker 1>inspired to look when their turn comes up on Chandra. Unfortunately,

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<v Speaker 1>due to this potential planet's tremendous distance from Earth and

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<v Speaker 1>unique system composition, it's going to take a long time

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<v Speaker 1>to verify whether it actually exists. The system has two stars,

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<v Speaker 1>a neutron star or black hole astronomers aren't exactly sure

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<v Speaker 1>which that's emitting the X rays observed to be dimming

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<v Speaker 1>during the transit, and a companion star that's twenty times

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<v Speaker 1>the mass of our own son. The planetary candidate orbits

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<v Speaker 1>both of those celestial objects, making it circumbinary, and it

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<v Speaker 1>takes roughly seventy years to make that orbit, so the

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<v Speaker 1>next time a transit might be visible would be several

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<v Speaker 1>decades from now. Carmichael said, Since the next transit event

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<v Speaker 1>is so uncertain, it could be as soon as decades

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<v Speaker 1>from now or much longer. There aren't any plans in

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<v Speaker 1>place to take follow up observations of this particular planet candidate. Instead,

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<v Speaker 1>new X ray observations and archival data of previous observations

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<v Speaker 1>are more readily available to search for more planet candidates

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<v Speaker 1>like this one. So while the existence of M fifty

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<v Speaker 1>one u l S one B might never be verified,

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<v Speaker 1>researchers plan to use it as inspiration to search for

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<v Speaker 1>other planetary candidates like it, far beyond the bounds of

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<v Speaker 1>our galaxy and perhaps even within it. Today's episode is

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<v Speaker 1>based on the article Researchers find first potential planet outside

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<v Speaker 1>the Milky Way on how stuff works dot Com, written

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<v Speaker 1>by Valerie Stymack. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio

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<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it

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<v Speaker 1>is produced by Tyler Clang. Or more podcasts from my

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<v Speaker 1>heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.