Gaia essay 11: Astrometric microlensing (Michael Perryman, 15 March 2021)

This essay explores astrometric microlensing, a phenomenon where the gravity of a foreground object bends the light from a background star, causing observable effects. Initially used to confirm general relativity and search for dark matter, microlensing surveys now significantly contribute to exoplanet discovery. The text highlights how the Gaia mission provides unprecedented capabilities to study these events by precisely measuring the movement of stars, enabling accurate lens characterisation and mass estimations. Furthermore, the document discusses predictions of future microlensing events using Gaia data and the potential to study exotic objects like black holes and pulsars through combined space and ground-based observations.

This audio conversation has been created from the original essay (www.michaelperryman.co.uk) using the AI conversion provided by Google NotebookLM, April 2025. Animation: artist impression of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope (ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

Видео Gaia essay 11: Astrometric microlensing (Michael Perryman, 15 March 2021) канала Gaia Essays