Scientists Discover First 'Homeless' Planet!
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Though scientists have always theorized about the possibility of a 'homeless planet' (one that is wandering around the Universe without being pulled by the gravity of a star), they had never been able to confirm the existence of one, until the discovery of this celestial body that astronomers are calling CFBDSIR2149.
The discovery, revealed in a scientific paper released on Wednesday November 14th, was made by a team of astrophysicists led by University of Montreal's Itienne Artigau using data provided by two powerful telescopes - The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. While CFBDSIR2149, which is located about 100 light years away from Earth is hanging out with a group of very young stars known as the AB Doradus Moving Group, it is not orbiting any of them!
Based on the assumption that CFBDSIR2149 sports the same origins as its companions, scientists estimate that it is about 50-120 million years old, between four to seven times bigger than Jupiter and has a temperature of 860°F (430°C).
Given that objects sporting a mass of less than 13 times that of Jupiter are classified as planets as opposed to brown dwarfs, researchers are almost positive that CFBDSIR2149 is the first starless planet found.
What they are still not sure about is if these kind of errant planets are stand-alone celestial formations or the result of a normal planet being kicked out of its solar system.
While finding a planet they have been theorizing about for years is exciting, what is even more so is the fact that the lack of a star means that the planet has no light being reflected from its atmosphere. This will allow astronomers to study the CFBDSIR2149's atmosphere much more clearly with the help of infrared telescopes, which in turn, will help them gain a better understanding of planets that do orbit their stars.
Though scientists are now even more convinced that there are many more 'homeless' planets floating around, finding them is not going to be easy. After all, it took them over the decade of scanning through millions of stars to locate this one!
Resources: dailymail.co.uk, blogs.discoverymagazine.com
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280 Comments
ahmedzainae00over 10 yearsIts like MN! always cold... brr!!
kell-bellover 10 yearsexept in the summer MN is warm.
- :)over 10 yearsGosh... Must be really cold there... No wonder it's blue.
superman12566over 10 yearsHello Superman12566 here and i'm here to say a little something like this... It Must be cold there... or brrr
tomatoman112over 10 yearsgod It must be cold- aleinover 10 yearsso awesome
- sciencekidover 10 yearsthe it's a planet in space so what comment. someone's not going to be a scientist when he/she grows up. if you don't care why'd you read this. science is AWSOME. by the way I'm in 4th grade. thats why I'm science kid no scinceman
- sciencekidover 10 yearsthe this is great who knows what else we will discover is my comment how far is the nearest star star. we need a new planet by the way there's global warming here. just kidding. but the earth is heating up. okay I'm off topic I'm going to end this comment now.
- sciencekidover 10 yearsthere is no way this planet has life. i know about the search for life in space. might want cross that planet of the list. its probably -900f. or colder. also why can't the planet have a better name like proessa (prO-E-su
kaylyn_kkover 10 yearsyour really smart. I bet you that you could become a scientist one day. Keep it up!
- sciencekidover 10 yearshow far is the planet from the nearest star?
- ...over 10 yearsDon't comment if you don't care about this. To many people, this is an interesting subject. Maybe it isn't your favorite topic, or you don't understand.
