Signs of a possible first planet found outside of our galaxy

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has detected signs of what appears to be a planet orbiting a star outside of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time in history; this exoplanet, which is a name given to planets that orbit stars outside of the solar system, was detected in Messier 51, also known as M51 or the Whirlpool galaxy.

The discovery was made by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Telescope and is said to be the size of the planet Saturn; planetary signals were found through the telescope observation of transits, which causes light to dim as a planet passes in front of a star. This technique has been used to find thousands of exoplanets, reaching nearly 5,000 exoplanets/worlds orbiting stars beyond the Sun, however, they had all been located within the Milky Way galaxy.

The newly discovered exoplanet in a Whirlpool galaxy is a huge discovery as this is the first time ever that an exoplanet has been discovered outside of the Milky Way; it is located some 28 million light-years away from our Milky Way galaxy.

Dr Rosanne Di Stefano from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge US spoke about finding the exoplanet, saying, “The method we developed and employed is the only presently implementable method to discover planetary systems in other galaxies. It is a unique method, uniquely well-suited to finding planets around X-ray binaries at any distance from which we can measure a light curve. We are trying to open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds by searching for planet candidates at X-ray wavelengths, a strategy that makes it possible to discover them in other galaxies.”

The space agency also wrote on their website about the discovery of the exoplanet, “If a planet exists in this system, it likely had a tumultuous history and violent past. An exoplanet in the system would have had to survive a supernova explosion that created the neutron star or black hole.”

New discoveries are being made all the time, but great findings like signs of the first planet outside of the Milky Way is a once in a lifetime breakthrough; so if you are interested in learning and seeing more news on the exoplanet or other discoveries, then follow NASA and Chandra Observatory on Twitter and keep updated with recent news!