March 30th, 2020
(updated June 14th, 2023)
This animation illustrates the concept of gravitational microlensing. When one star in the sky appears to pass nearly in front of another, the light rays of the background source star become bent due to the warped space-time around the foreground star. This star is then a virtual magnifying glass, amplifying the brightness of the background source star, so we refer to the foreground star as the lens star. If the lens star harbors a planetary system, then those planets can also act as lenses, each one producing a short deviation in the brightness of the source. Thus we discover the presence of exoplanets, and measure its mass and separation from its star. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI LabWatch this video on the NASA.gov Video YouTube channel. || WFIRST_Microlensing_S1a_4k_30fps_ProRes.00236_print.jpg (1024x576) [57.6 KB] || WFIRST_Microlensing_S1a_4k_30fps_ProRes.mov (3840x2160) [1.9 GB] || WFIRST_Microlensing_S1a_4k_30fps_h264.mp4 (3840x2160) [20.7 MB] || frames/3840x2160_16x9_30p/S1a/ (3840x2160) [64.0 KB] || WFIRST_Microlensing_S1a_4k_30fps_h264.webm (3840x2160) [2.9 MB] ||
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