WASHINGTON — Scientists have discovered the first planet from another galaxy, sort of.
While some 500 planets have been identified in other parts of our galaxy — the Milky Way — none has been reported in other galaxies.
Now one, in an artist’s rendering at right, has been discovered orbiting a star called HIP 13044, about 2,000 light-years away. While this star is now in the Milky Way, researchers report in Thursday’s online edition of the journal Science that it originated in a separate galaxy that was later cannibalized by ours.
That makes the new planet, which is about 20 percent larger than Jupiter, the first found to have originated in another galaxy.
“This discovery is very exciting,” said Rainer Klement of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
The Associated Press
