Posted on 05/18/2011 1:45:25 PM PDT by Red Badger
Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.
The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The newfound planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light-years from Earth.
"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected, holding major implications for planetary formation and evolution models," said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
"Our survey is like a population census," said David Bennett, a NASA and National Science Foundation-funded co-author of the study from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. "We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these data, can estimate overall numbers in the galaxy."
The study, led by Takahiro Sumi from Osaka University in Japan, appears in the May 19 issue of the journal Nature.
The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Astronomers recently uncovered evidence for 10 such lone worlds, thought to have been "booted," or ejected, from developing solar systems. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
They wouldn't play nicely with the other planets.
N
I
B
I
R
U
I’ve always assumed this to be the case. There is no reason to believe a planet needs a star to form or that a planet can’t be pulled away from a star.
Personally I suspect these “nomadic” planets may account for retrograde orbits we’ve seen from many of the exoplanets.
Exactly...do they have satellite bodies which might harbor life warmed by tidal forces?
There could very well be habitable moons of these ejected planets that are heated by tidal forces or IR radiation from the “super Jupiter” and the night sky looks constantly like a moonless night.
What would be cool would be if there was one very close to our solar system, could make for a great place to move when we need to escape from the lunacy on earth that we see sometimes...
Catastrophic!
Star Duds...
Everything I know I learned in the primordial soup.
I would imagine that wandering around in interstellar space for eons at a time would tend to cool things down a bit, tidal forces or no tidal forces.................
“Exactly...do they have satellite bodies which might harbor life warmed by tidal forces?”
Or warmed as the Earth itself is internally, by breakdown of radioactive isotopes embedded underground.
Totally useless dead planet floating in space who cares bump.
Yes, but is "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye" sung when they get flushed?
Wow you must be technologically advanced...
God does a better job.
You beat me.
Darn, beat me to it.
They going to call it Bronson Alpha or Beta?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.