Using a technique called microlensing, astrophysicists at the University of Oklahoma have confirmed the existence of exoplanets beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Not just one or two, either — the scientific team has estimated that there are multitudes of planets, ranging in sizes comparable from the Moon to Jupiter, in the galaxy known as RX J1131-1231.
Findings from the research were recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image above shows the galaxy at the center, surrounded by four quasars. It’s estimated there are several trillion planets in that central red dot.
Moreover, these appear to be “rogue” planets not circling a star in a conventional solar system but roaming free around the far-off galaxy.
“We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy,” said OU professor Xinyu Dai. “These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique.”
Einstein theorized that astronomers could use microlensing to observe distant objects using the gravity of stars that are directly between them and the Earth, Terry Oswalt of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University told CNET. “When a star in the foreground passes exactly between us and a background star, gravitational microlensing results in a perfectly circular ring of light — a so-called ‘Einstein ring,'” he said.
The massive gravitational pull of an object like a star causes space to bend around it, and light from a more distant object would curve around it as well, resulting in a magnifying effect.
The astrophysicists used observations from NASA’s Chandray X-ray Observatory, a space telescope controlled by the Smithsonian. They then analyzed the results using the OU Supercomputing Center. Microlensing has been used to discover thousands of planets within the Milky Way before, but this is a new frontier.
“This is an example of how powerful the techniques of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be,” said OU researcher Eduardo Guerras. “This galaxy is located 3.8 billion light years away, and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly, not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario. However, we are able to study them, unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses. This is very cool science.”
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.