Source: arXiv:1001.2105v1
While the most distant exoplanets detected until today are OGLE-05-390L b, MOA-2007-BLG-400-L b at around 6,500 & 6,000 parsecs, which roughly means ~21,190 & ~19,500 light-years away respectively, an international team of astronomers proposes a new observational method that they believe will allow the detection of exoplanets in the Andromeda galaxy (M31) that is at a distance of 2.9 million light-years from us.
A simulation of the expected microlensing event. Credit: Ingrosso et al. (2009)
The authors think that that exoplanets in the M31 galaxy may be detected with the pixel-lensing method by using telescopes making high cadence observations of an ongoing microlensing event.Although the mean mass for detectable exoplanets is about 2 MJ, even small mass exoplanets (inferior to 20 Earth masses) can cause significant deviations, which are observable with large telescopes. (read more)
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