Since the first proposal by Paczynski, great efforts to detect Galactic dark matter by detecting light variations of stars located in the Magellanic Clouds and Galactic bulge caused by gravitational microlensing have been and are being carried out and more than 1,000 events have been successfully detected. In this paper, we review the progress in the theoretical and experimental progresses in microlensing. We begin with basics of microlensing and summarize the results obtained from the last 8 year observations along with the implications of the results. We also discuss the usefulness of microlensing in other fields of astronomy such as the stellar atmosphere, Galactic binary systems, and extra-solar planets. We finally discuss the problems of the current experiments and the new types of observations that can overcome these problems.

• 박명구(경북대학교 천문대기과학과) | Myeong-Gu Park (Department of Astronomy & Atmospheric Sciences, Kyungpook National University)
• 한정호(충북대학교 물리학과) | Cheongho Han (Department of Physics, Chungbuk National University)