There are over 100 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone, according to estimates by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. And yet, only a tiny fraction of those worlds have been studied in great depth. One of the reasons for this is that planets orbiting close to their stars – like those in the M51 Whirlpool Galaxy – are usually too hot and too bright to study with current technology. But that’s about to change, as new observatories are being built that will allow us to peer deep into these remote and difficult-to-reach systems. So far, scientists have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets around stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, and they estimate that there may be tens of billions of such planets scattered throughout our galaxy alone.

Astronomers were able to find evidence of a possible planet in the spiral galaxy Messier 51 using a new method called radial velocity. The exoplanet would be the first ever found in this galaxy and would help to improve our understanding of how galaxies form. It is approximately the size of Saturn due to the calculations of the astronomers who made the discovery.

These scientists were using the ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescopes. Based on the evidence from both telescopes, astronomers believe that this object is a planet, and it is very likely to be one of the most distant known planets. The planet was found orbiting a very small and faint galaxy, which means that it may have been difficult for astronomers to find. However, by using XMM-Newton’s (X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission – Newton) high-resolution capabilities, they were able to determine that the object was not just a small star but instead appeared to be a planet. 

The team of scientists was led by Rosanne Di Stefano. She is a researcher from the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian.

This discovery provides us with an incredible opportunity to learn more about the universe beyond our galaxy. It also suggests that there may be many more planets out there waiting to be discovered.