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Searching for distant and wandering worlds

In a global exoplanet observation experiment, NASA’s Kepler K2 mission and Earth-based observatories on six continents hope to survey millions of stars toward the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. Using a technique called gravitational microlensing, scientists will hunt for exoplanets that orbit far from their host star and for free-floating exoplanets that wander between the stars.

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Using stellar ‘twins’ to climb the cosmic distance ladder

Astronomers have developed a new, highly accurate method of measuring the distances between stars using a technique which searches out stellar ‘twins’. The method could be a valuable complement to the Gaia satellite which is creating a 3-D map of the sky over five years, measuring the size of the Milky Way and enabling a greater understanding of how it evolved.