A team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma have discovered “planetary mass bodies” outside of the Milky Way. They were discovered in one gravitationally-lensed galaxy, and in one gravitationally-lensed galaxy cluster using a technique called quasar micro-lensing. According to the researchers, the planetary mass objects are either planets or primordial black holes.
These detections are the second and third of this type. The first occurred in 2018 involving some of the same researchers. There is currently no way to directly detect objects like these, and no way to differentiate between planets and small black holes.
“The detection of planet-mass objects, either free-floating planets or primordial black holes, are extremely valuable for modeling of star/planet formation or early universe,” said lead author Dai in a press release. “Even without decomposing the two populations, our limit on the primordial black hole population are already a few orders of magnitude below previous limits in this mass range.”
