Well, microlensing (or Gravitational Microlensing) relies on two stars aligning by chance. One is close, the other far away. The light sent out by the stars bends due to gravity. This means that if you repeatedly took pictures of the stars, you would see the light curve of the brightness, if you put the data on a graph.
However(and this is the interesting bit) if there is an exo-planet* orbiting one of those stars, we can spot it! A planet disrupts the light as it travels towards us. When the light is plotted on a graph, this creates a 'blip'. There will be a jump in the smooth curve to indicate a planet. The blip may be large or small, all depending on when it orbits, etc...
For more information on Micro-lensing:http://lcogt.net/en/education/
(* an exo-planet is a planet that is not part of our solar system)
So, as you can guess, we are very excited. We have booked time for this Monday the 11th on the Faulkes telescope in Australia, and have invited our mentor Dr. Gregg Hallinan to take a look at our work.
If you're interested in more, this is a video explaining how the light bends, and how we see it with a lens.
The history of micro-lensing involves many famous scientists including Newton, and Einstein. To learn more visitthe Wikipedia page.
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