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Boffins are looking into the planet, which seems to be hurtling through the universe with no destination in sight — just weeks after 3I/ATLAS passed through our solar system
Scientists have unearthed a rogue planet that appears to be floating through space with no star. Researchers are racing to find out as much information about the celestial body before it disappears from view.
In recent months, astronomers have been inundated with new discoveries to look into. Last year, the planet was swarmed with interest in 3I/ATLAS, a comet that many had believed could have been an alien spacecraft.
But now, scientists have been left baffled by this new discovery, as it appears to have no host star to connect itself to. However, with no star to reflect light off, the new discovery could be completely invisible.
According to the Sun, these planets are relatively common, being named “free-floating planets”, with no centre of gravity to pull them into. However, with no star to provide light to — and no ability to generate light itself — the planet is almost entirely invisible.
Astronomers have said the universe is filled these rogue planets as they float across space with no specific route. Despite the first one only being spotted back in 2001, some boffins estimate that there could be billions of these invisible bodies in the Milky Way alone.
It is currently unknown how these planets came about; however, the current working theory is that these planets are born around stars but are kicked out afterwards because of a gravitational shift. These can crop up as a result of each planet’s interaction with other planets or interstellar objects.
The newest discovery has already given scientists plenty to work with, as they track the trajectory and speed of the planet itself. Figures retrieved thanks to our latest space tech has led many to believe that the planet could have been kicked out of its original solar system.
As well as this, astronomers and astrophysicists have also been able to work out its location relative to the Earth itself. Using an incredibly complicated method called gravitational microlensing, boffins are helping to discover dozens of these planets right next to us.
This method is only able to be used when a rogue planet managed to pass between Earth and another star in the distance. Because of this, the amount of light emitted from the star is refracted, bent a little, helping to show there is a secret planet passing through.
After two separate observations of the rogue planet — one using a space telescope, the other being here on Earth — it was discovered the planet is roughly 22% the size of Jupiter. This still makes the rogue planet incredibly huge and could easily dwarf the Earth with its size.
As well as this, the planet’s distance to Earth was also determined thanks to this genius method. However, it was worked out that the invisible planetary body is quite far away from us.
Currently, it has been estimated to be roughly 10,000 lightyears away from Earth, with no chance of crashing into our planet as it heads towards the centre of our galaxy. Scientists are hoping that with new scientific tech, we can learn more about these planets.
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