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Rogue Planet

All articles tagged with #rogue planet

Dark-world oceans: moons around sunless rogue planets could harbor life for billions of years
space-exploration25 days ago

Dark-world oceans: moons around sunless rogue planets could harbor life for billions of years

New simulations suggest Earth-sized moons orbiting free-floating, starless rogue planets could remain warm enough to keep liquid water on their surfaces for up to 4.3 billion years, thanks to tidal heating and insulating hydrogen atmospheres, potentially expanding habitable environments beyond traditional stellar zones.

Scientists Measure Mass of Rogue Saturn-Size Planet Drifting in Space
science3 months ago

Scientists Measure Mass of Rogue Saturn-Size Planet Drifting in Space

Astronomers have directly measured the mass of a Saturn-sized rogue planet drifting in space using gravitational microlensing, marking a significant advancement in studying free-floating planets that do not orbit stars. This breakthrough was achieved through a rare cosmic alignment observed from Earth and the Gaia space telescope, demonstrating a new method to analyze these elusive celestial bodies.

Mysterious Rogue Planet Rapidly Growing Like a Star
science6 months ago

Mysterious Rogue Planet Rapidly Growing Like a Star

A rogue planet named Cha 1107-7626 is rapidly growing by consuming six billion tonnes of material per second, challenging traditional distinctions between planets and stars and suggesting that some planets may form through star-like processes. Advanced telescopes like the VLT and upcoming ELT are helping astronomers study these phenomena, which could reshape our understanding of planetary and stellar evolution.

James Webb Telescope Detects Stormy Auroras on Sunless Rogue Planet
science6 months ago

James Webb Telescope Detects Stormy Auroras on Sunless Rogue Planet

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have observed auroras and complex weather patterns on SIMP 0136, a starless, rogue brown dwarf, revealing detailed atmospheric structures, temperature inversions, and steady silicate clouds, driven by magnetic activity and internal heat, demonstrating that even isolated objects can have dynamic weather systems.

Rogue Planet Larger Than Jupiter Rapidly Growing by Consuming Billions of Tons of Gas Per Second
science6 months ago

Rogue Planet Larger Than Jupiter Rapidly Growing by Consuming Billions of Tons of Gas Per Second

Scientists have discovered a rogue planet, Cha 1107-7626, in the Chamaeleon constellation that is actively accreting gas and dust at an unprecedented rate, suggesting some rogue planets can grow similarly to stars, especially during violent growth spurts fueled by magnetic fields, challenging previous notions of these solitary worlds.

Hubble Discovers Rogue Planet Using Einstein's Help
science8 months ago

Hubble Discovers Rogue Planet Using Einstein's Help

Astronomers discovered a new rogue planet using archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope, leveraging Einstein's theory of general relativity and gravitational microlensing, with the event being one of the shortest on record, suggesting the planet is either a Neptune-mass or Saturn-mass object located thousands of light-years away, and the discovery highlights the potential for finding more such elusive worlds in existing data.

"Runaway Star: Earth's Billion-Year Salvation Revealed"
astronomy2 years ago

"Runaway Star: Earth's Billion-Year Salvation Revealed"

A new theoretical study suggests that in about a billion years, a chance encounter with a passing star could save Earth from the sun's expansion by tossing it into a cooler orbit or helping it break free from the solar system entirely. However, the chances of this happening are extremely slim. The study simulated how our solar system would behave if a star swept past it, and found that in some simulations, Earth was pushed into a farther, colder orbit or landed in the Oort cloud. In a few simulations, Earth was gravitationally lured away by the wandering star, potentially allowing for liquid water. However, the overall odds of this happening are just 1 in 35,000. The study suggests that instead of relying on a stellar savior, we should focus on finding our own solutions to modify Earth's orbit or block a fraction of the Sun's incoming energy.