Roman Microlensing Rogue Planet (VIDEO)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Caption

This animation illustrates the concept of gravitational microlensing with a rogue planet — a planet that does not orbit a star. When the rogue planet appears to pass nearly in front of a background source star, the light rays of the source star bend due to the warped space-time around it. This slightly changes the star's apparent position on the sky, and can even produce multiple copies of it. Such changes signal the planet's presence to astronomers.

Credit

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

Usage Restrictions

No restrictions.

License

Public Domain

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