A very suspicious dip.
We've spotted thousands of planets around other stars in our own Milky Way. But when we look at other galaxies, it's mostly impossible to see individual stars — let alone any planets orbiting them. Recently, astronomers spotted what looks suspiciously like a transit event in the signal from a bright x-ray binary system in the whirlpool galaxy. Could it be an exoplanet? Emily runs throuugh all the ways this might *not* be the case, and we're left with a tantalising "well ... maybe”.
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
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Since you’re here … You might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we discuss in this episode:
A good article about the research
The Whirlpool Galaxy
NASA’s exoplanets page
Exoplanets in other galaxies