How does gravitational microlensing find rogue planets?
Chapter 1

The great escape

Chapter 2

Finding things in the dark

Chapter 3

Extreme environments

Chapter 4

The nomad neighbors

YOUR GOAL

Master of Rogue planets drifting alone

Ch 2 · Finding things in the dark
futura

futura The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Aug 8

futura

futura Rogue Planets

No sun at all, no sun at all, We're drifting through the dark!

Aug 8

futura

futura Catching the glow of fading warmth

Aug 8

futura
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

futura NASA's upcoming space telescope will conduct a massive survey for rogue planets.

Aug 8

futura
Catching the glow of fading warmth

futura Young rogue planets are still warm enough to shine in infrared light.

Aug 8

futura
Cosmic Hide-and-Glow
BETA

futura Track faint heat glows to discover how sunless rogue planets drift through the galaxy.

Aug 8

futura
Fun Fact

Light bending: Gravitational microlensing can detect rogue planets that are thousands of light-years away from Earth.

Aug 8

futura
Glossary
microlensing (noun)
An astronomical phenomenon where the gravitational field of a foreground object bends and magnifies light from a background star. In 2020, astronomers used this technique to discover an Earth-sized free-floating planet named OGLE-2016-BLG-1928.

Aug 8

futura
Gossip

Which space telescope has the coolest name?

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

What happens to a background star's light during a gravitational microlensing event caused by a rogue planet?

Aug 8

futura

futura Bending light to see the invisible

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

Which space agency launched the Euclid telescope in 2023 to map the dark universe and search for rogue planets?

Aug 8

futura

futura The Euclid mission joins the hunt

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

In which constellation did the Euclid telescope find dozens of candidate rogue planets in 2023?

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

Which upcoming NASA space telescope is specifically optimized to find thousands of rogue planets?

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

Why do young rogue planets glow in infrared light despite having no host star?

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

Why are traditional optical telescopes poor at spotting cold rogue planets in deep space?

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

Which scientific principle explains how gravitational microlensing works to find rogue planets?

Aug 8

futura
Quiz

What type of electromagnetic radiation is most useful for directly imaging warm rogue planets?

Aug 8