#microlensing — Public Fediverse posts

Nature Journal astronomy covers: 1993

The footprint of dark matter?

Feature articles on gravitational microlensing by dark objects by two collaborations: MACHO and EROS + News & Views paper "In search of the halo grail" by Craig J. Hogan

https://nature.com/nature/volumes/365/issues/6447

#darkmatter #machos #macho #eros #galaxy #milkyway #galaxies #lmc #star #stars #lensing #microlensing #universe #cosmology #astronomy #astrophysics #astrodon #space #science #research #nature #cover #naturecover

We recently tested out the idea of doing #microlensing from #space using the #NASA #Kepler #telescope. Kepler has so far found thousands of #exoplanets but using the #TransitMethod, not microlensing. But in 2016, before it stopped working, it did a mini microlensing survey. Kepler wasn't designed to do microlensing and colleagues spent years developing a #DataReduction pipeline that would work. Then, my #postdoc Iain McDonald and I built a sophisticated pipeline to find #planet candidates (6/n)

So far #microlensing surveys have been done mostly from the ground and it's hard work. We need to look at very crowded star fields close to the centre of our #Galaxy. But the #Earths #atmosphere blurs the stars, making it difficult to tell them apart. It would be easier to do this with a dedicated #space #telescope.

#NASA is currently building the #NancyGraceRomanSpaceTelescope. #Roman will conduct a dedicated microlensing survey capable of finding cool planets as small as #Mars. (4/n)

One method is #microlensing. #Einstein in his #Theory of #GeneralRelativity predicted that light can be deflected by #gravity. Microlensing is a great way to find cool #planets that orbit further out from their #HostStar than those that can be seen with the #TransitMethod. We can spot a number of these #signals each year by monitoring hundreds of millions of #stars every 15 minutes or so for several months per year. That's a lot of #data to process, but #computers are fast these days. (3/n)