Member Since: 1/7/2010
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The Loneliest Planet: ‘Young & Unattach' Jupiter-world found
The loneliest planet: Astronomers find ‘young and unattached’ Jupiter-like world in our own solar neighbourhood
- The planet, dubbed 2MASS J1119–1137, is around 10 million-years-old
- It resides around 95 light years from Earth and doesn't have a star to orbit
- The world could shed light on how planets form outside the solar system
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Astronomers have discovered a young, nomad planet floating in the emptiness of space.
The planet, dubbed 2MASS J1119–1137, is around 10 million-years-old - practically a baby on a galactic time scale.
Researchers hope the mysterious world, which doesn't have a star, could help them better understand how planets form outside the solar system.
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Astronomers have discovered a young, nomad planet floating in the emptiness of space. Researchers hope the mysterious world, which doesn't have a star, could help them better understand how planets form outside the solar system. Pictured is an artist's impression of a rogue planet
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ROGUE PLANETS - Extrasolar planets, or planets found outside the solar system, have been discovered at various points over the past decade.
- Around a thousand of these were found when their host stars began wobbling or dimming because of the pull of the planet.
- However, only a small amount of these planets have been directly imaged, all of which are around young stars less than 200 million years old.
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The planet is thought to between four and eight times the mass of Jupiter and resides in our solar neighborhood, around 95 light years from Earth.
The planet's unique light signature was discovered using data from Nasa's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise) and other ground-based telescopes.
'It emits much more light in the infrared part of the spectrum than it would be expected to if it had already aged and cooled,' said lead author Kendra Kellogg, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario.
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The planet, dubbed 2MASS J1119–1137, is around 10 million-years-old - practically a baby on a galactic time scale. The planet is between four and eight times the mass of Jupiter and resides around 95 light years away
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WHY A HOST STAR SO IMPORTANT
- Orbits are created by a balance between the forward motion of a body in space, such as a planet or moon, and the pull of gravity on it from another body, such as a large planet or star.
- An object with a large mass goes forward and wants to keep going forward; however, the gravity of another body in space pulls it in.
- There is a continuous tug-of-war between the one object wanting to go forward and away and the other wanting to pull it in.
- These forces of inertia and gravity create the orbit.
- If the movement of one object is too strong, the object speeds past the other and doesn't enter orbit.
- If the movement is weaker than the pull of gravity, the object will be pulled into the other one and crash.
- When a planet doesn't have a star, in theory, it should carry on moving and not remain still because there are no forces in place keeping it there.
- The movement of planets such as 2MASS J1119–1137 could help astronomers better understand this process.
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'We promptly confirmed that 2MASS J1119–1137 is in fact a young low-mass object in the solar neighborhood, and not a distant reddened star,' said Western's Stanimir Metchev.
Next, the team wanted to determine the precise age of this object.
'Our Gemini observations only showed that the object was younger than about 200 million years,' said Metchev.
'If it was much younger, it could actually be a free-floating planet—an analog of our own Jupiter, yet without a host star.'
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Being nearby, 95 light years away, 2MASS J1119–1137 only narrowly misses the crown for being the brightest free-floating planet analog.
That is held by another object known as PSO J318.5−22, discovered three years ago.
However, at an age of 23 million years, PSO J318.5−22 is more than twice the age of 2MASS J1119–1137.
'Discovering free-floating planet analogs like 2MASS J1119–1137 and PSO J318.5−22 offers a great opportunity to study the nature of giant planets outside the solar system,' said Kellogg.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz455F0VqHM
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Wow never heard of a planet that wasn't orbiting a Star. Weird and interesting. 