Scientists have spotted a ‘rogue planet’. Just what is a rogue planet, you might ask? It’s a planet that is floating on its own through space. It doesn’t orbit a star, nor is it part of a stellar system. It’s just bopping along through space without any companions of any kind. It would be nice if it had a moon or two keeping it company, but I didn’t find any mention of that possibility.
Also known as
free-floating planets, rogue planets are mysterious because they are much less
bright than other planets—the kind that do belong to a stellar system. A key
way to detect planets is to spot them when they move in front of their star.
But without a star, planets are much harder to see.
Scientists spotted this
rogue using a micro-lensing event, which is when the gravity from an object
magnifies the light from a star located behind it. That effect was seen from
both ground- and space-based telescopes. Astronomers compared the different
positions in order to work out the mass of the planet. It is roughly 22% the
mass of Jupiter and it is located around 3,000 parsecs from the Milky Way’s
center. (A parsec is about 3.26 light-years of distance.)
The planet’s mass
indicates it probably formed in a planetary system, but it has since broken free.
It is thought that lower mass rogue planets may be thrown out into space by big
gravitational changes in their system, which might happen by interactions with
nearby planets or unstable stars.
There have only been a
small number of rogue planets found so far. The number is expected to increase,
particularly through the launch of Nasa’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
I wonder if any of
these rogue planets ever find a new home in a new stellar system?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-spot-rogue-planet-drifting-through-space/ar-AA1TstP6?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=695838991e254e038f06ec3ae1010c2a&ei=72
