Astronomers May Have Discovered The First Known Exoplanet

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https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/astronomers-may-have-spotted-the-first-known-exoplanet-in-another-galaxy/

You didnt finish the headline.

An "exoplanet" is any planet in a solar system other than our own. They have been discovering exoplanets since the mid 90s. They now know almost 5000 of them. What makes this a first is that it is the first exoplanet discovered in another galaxy.

In a galaxy far far away.....could it be? Tattooine?

But if you were there you would have a great view of a star being eaten alive by a black hole (or a neutron star).

But if you were there you would have a great view of a star being slowly eaten alive by a black hole (or a neutron star).

I like space. That's why i keep so much of it between myself and others.

Space...the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship WP and it's merry crew

Captains log, stardate, We seem to be encountering a strange and wondrous site, such unusual and bizarre lifeforms, i think i may have landed on the wrong planet.

Its hard to grasp how mind blowing this is.

Imaging turning a telescope onto a street lamp down the street, in the day time (when the lamp doesnt emit light, but you can see it because the sun is out). Thats seeing another planet in our own solar system.

Imagine you're in Washington DC at night and you're turning a telescope onto a night street lamp in Chicago, a 1000 miles away, not to see the street lamp itself, but to see the bugs flying around the street lamp.

The lamp gives off light like the sun and other stars, but the bugs (like planets, people, and things on earth)dont emit light and can only be seen by the light they reflect that comes off the street lamp).

Thats the equivalent of trying to detect exoplanets orbiting even the nearest stars within our own galaxy. Thats why it took until the mid 1990s before astronomers actually detected the first exoplanets.

Now...imagine that the streetlamp is not in Chicago, but on the surface of Pluto. And your trying to detect bugs flying around it. Thats what trying to detect an exoplanet in another galaxy is like.