This Map Shows Just How Little We Know About Our Own Galaxy


So, you
think you know the Milky Way? Well you don't. 






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This new Milky Way map from NASA
displays the exo-planets we've discovered so far, counting the newly confirmed
exoplanet 13,000 light years away from Earth, catchily-named
OGLE-2014-BLG-0124L. 
It's about half as far away as the farthest exoplanet ever
found, one of only a few handfuls to be discovered beyond Kepler's range.






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The majority
of exoplanets that have been discovered were the work of the Kepler, but the
very furthest ones that have been found — like this recent one — owe their
discovery to microlensing methods. 

Like gravitational lensing, where gravity
bends space and light to generate a natural "zoom lens" that lets us
see further afield, microlensing also makes use of certainly occurring bends in
space. 

In microlensing, however, that enlargement procedure is triggered by a
fainter star passing in front of a more distant star, making the space around
the distant star more easily observable.






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