Research Paper on:
Microlensing Planet Detection

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
been an area of interest from the very earliest days, when the skies were seen as the realm of the gods. Now it is the realm of scientists seeking to  discover what occupies the universe with us; seeking to understand the elements remotely due to our inability to traverse the distances involved. One of the tools used by astronomers when  seeking new planets has been that of microlensing. This is seen as a relatively new technology, however, it is not as recent as may be expected. Microlensing was described  by Einstein in a paper he published in 1936 (Vreeswijk, 1996). This is the phenomenon by which the light from a body would not usually reach the earth, but is  directed towards the earth as a result of an intermediary body acting as a gravitational lens, this was known as microlensing (Vreeswijk, 1996). To understand the way that microlensing  operating in seeking out planets we need to consider the problems that can be encountered in seeking to find plants outside our own solar system. When we want to start  looking for planets there are several problems that can be encountered. We known that unlike stars the light from planets is not as visible, and as such visual observations will  not indicate the presence of planets in distant galaxies as they will be lost in the glare form their parent stars (NASA, 2002). This means that we need to consider  more indirect methods of detecting planets, by looking for evidence of their existence by the effect their presence has on observable phenomena (NASA, 2002). By using Einsteins theory of  relativity we see that gravity can bend space. We assume that light travels, but where there is a planet present in an area if we cannot see the planet then