Exoplanet Microlensing
A microlensing planet's two host stars come into view
Keck and Hubble resolve the lens more than fifteen years after its event, confirming a two-star system with a massive planet whose precise orbit remains unknown.
Briefed October 7, 2026 · Aliens in the Clouds
Preprint · Host Stars Directly Resolved
Sean Terry and colleagues revisited the 2006 microlensing event OGLE-2006-BLG-284 after the foreground lens and background source had moved far enough apart to resolve. Adaptive-optics images from Keck and observations from Hubble directly detect light from the lens system and measure its relative motion at 5.80 plus or minus 0.15 milliarcseconds per year.
Combining that light with the original microlensing curve gives stellar masses near 0.43 and 0.12 solar masses and a planet near 165 Earth masses. The authors describe this as the first direct detection of flux from a two-star microlensing system known to host a planet. The data do not yet show whether the planet circles one star or both; future precision radial velocities may decide.
Why it matters
Microlensing can reveal planets too distant or dim for ordinary transit surveys. Waiting for the lens and source to separate turns a brief brightening into a physically measured planetary system.
What the source establishes
Fresh Astronomical Journal submission posted October 5. The two-star lens is directly detected; the planet's mass is model-derived and its single-star versus circumbinary orbit remains unresolved.
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