Microlensing has led to the discovery of previous extrasolar planets. This is an
example of light curves produced from the microlensing event OGLE-2005-BLG-071. At
the peak of the event there is a deviation from the expected light curve for the
observed star (which can be seen as a dip in the peak, and is shown in the image
inset). This deviation was used to detect a planet several times the size of
Jupiter. Now the technique is being used to detect smaller and smaller planets.
Credit: OGLE, MicroFUN, MOA, PLANET, and RoboNet sites. |
