![\"Space\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/space.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAstronomers have detected a rare gas giant exoplanet in the outer reaches of the Milky Way, marking only the third such discovery in astronomical history.<\/p>\n
The planet, designated AT2021uey b, was found 3,262 light-years away in the galactic halo, far from the dense central regions where most exoplanets are typically observed.<\/p>\n
The discovery made by researchers from Vilnius University in Lithuania, working with international colleagues, employed gravitational microlensing, a phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century. <\/p>\n
This technique detects planets by observing the temporary amplification of starlight when a massive object passes between Earth and a distant star, creating a magnifying glass effect.<\/p>\n
It is only the third gas-giant exoplanet to be discovered<\/p>\n
GETTY<\/p>\n
The planet has a mass 1.3 times that of Jupiter and orbits an M dwarf star, completing one revolution every 4,170 days.<\/p>\n
This relatively small, cool star and its gas giant companion were first observed in 2021, with scientists spending years verifying and analysing the data before confirming the discovery.<\/p>\n
“This kind of work requires a lot of expertise, patience, and, frankly, a bit of luck,” says Dr Marius Maskoli\u016bnas, who leads the Lithuanian research team. “You have to wait for a long time for the source star and the lensing object to align and then check an enormous amount of data.”<\/p>\n
The collaboration emerged almost serendipitously during a visit to Warsaw’s Astronomical Observatory, where Professor Lukasz Wyrzykowski proposed analysing data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia telescope.<\/p>\n
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n Professor Edita Stonkut\u0117, one of the co-leaders of the project<\/p>\n VILNIUS UNIVERSITY<\/p>\n The project combined space-based observations with ground measurements from Vilnius University’s Mol\u0117tai Astronomical Observatory.<\/p>\n “Most microlensing effects are recorded at the densest part of the galaxy in its centre and disk,” notes Associate Professor Edita Stonkut\u0117, who leads the Lithuanian component of the Polish-Lithuanian project. <\/p>\n “However, we managed to find this microlensing phenomenon quite far from the centre, in the so-called galactic halo. <\/p>\n “This is only the third planet in observational history to be discovered so far from the Galactic bulge.”<\/p>\n The discovery adds to the nearly 6,000 exoplanets confirmed since the first planet orbiting a sun-like star was found in 1995. <\/p>\n Dr Marius Maskoli\u016bnas and Professor Edita Stonkut\u0117<\/p>\n VILNIUS UNIVERSITY<\/p>\n “When the first planet around a sun-like star was discovered, there was a great surprise that this Jupiter-type planet was so close to its star,” explains Associate Professor Stonkut\u0117. “We’ve had to rethink planetary formation models more than once.”<\/p>\n Microlensing offers unique advantages for detecting invisible cosmic matter. Dr Maskoli\u016bnas noted that visible matter accounts for merely one-tenth of the Milky Way’s total mass, with the remaining 90 per cent still invisible.<\/p>\n “What fascinates me about this method is that it can detect those invisible bodies,” he says. “You’re essentially measuring shadows.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers have detected a rare gas giant exoplanet in the outer reaches of the Milky Way, marking only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[12,70,512,413,16,15,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-194884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-sgg","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114705401549839437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\\u200bProfessor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/u200bprofessor-edita-stonkut-u0117-one-of-the-co-leaders-of-the-project.jpg\")
![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/dr-marius-maskoli-u016bnas-and-u200bprofessor-edita-stonkut-u0117.jpg\")