{"id":80934,"date":"2026-01-04T11:47:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T06:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=80934"},"modified":"2026-01-05T16:47:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:17:38","slug":"microlensing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/microlensing\/","title":{"rendered":"Microlensing"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Microlensing Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A study recently used microlensing to weigh a rogue planet, i.e. not orbiting a star. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Microlensing<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a fascinating phenomenon where the<\/span><b> light of a background star<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is <\/span><b>deflected by the gravity of a foreground object<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> towards an observer,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">temporarily <\/span><b>magnifying the star as the foreground object crosses the observer&#8217;s line of sight.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It occurs<\/span><b> due to gravitational lensing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>predicted by Einstein\u2019s General Theory of Relativity.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> intervening object <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">acts as a<\/span><b> gravitational lens, bending the background light.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We <\/span><b>don&#8217;t need<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to receive <\/span><b>any light at all from the foreground object<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and still we can use microlensing to<\/span><b> measure its properties, like mass and distance.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This makes it a <\/span><b>great way to find objects that are too far away to be visible<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, like distant planets, brown dwarfs, and neutron stars, and even <\/span><b>those that are entirely invisible, like isolated black holes.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microlensing events are <\/span><b>transient <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and generally <\/span><b>unpredictable.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Some events last for just 1 day,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> while <\/span><b>others <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">can continue for<\/span><b> months or even years<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and they can result in very sudden and dramatic changes in brightness.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Why Use Microlensing for Exoplanet-Hunting?<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Most exoplanet-hunting techniques<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> either <\/span><b>find planets really close to their star <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(like the transit and radial-velocity methods),<\/span><b> or very big, young planets far away from their star<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (the direct-imaging method).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microlensing is really <\/span><b>helpful for catching the planets in the middle <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 planets that are <\/span><b>similar to our own Jupiter<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 and <\/span><b>smaller planets much further out, including free-floating ones.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s even quite<\/span><b> effective at detecting Earth-like planets.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Other methods require many years<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to detect such planets. Instead, <\/span><b>microlensing relies on the blind luck of the planet passing in front of a star.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/ccidist-ws\/th\/th_delhi\/issues\/164532\/OPS\/GHPFD28LM.1+G0SFD43F9.1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microlensing  is a fascinating phenomenon where the light of a background star is deflected by the gravity of a foreground object towards an observer. Read more about Microlensing, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":81083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4557,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-80934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-microlensing","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}