Study suggests that ‘Rogue’ planets may be more than stars in the Milky Way

A newly published study suggests that there may be more “rogue” planets, those that do not revolve around a star, then there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

The study, published in the Astronomical Journal, notes the upcoming launch of the Roman space telescope Nancy Grace, which would take place in 2025, could find billions, perhaps trillions of these objects.

“As our view of the universe has expanded, we have realized that our solar system can be unusual,” said the study’s lead author, graduate student Samson Johnson, of Ohio State University, in a statement. “Novel will help us learn more about how we fit into the cosmic scheme of things by studying planets.”

95 ‘COOL WORLDS’ DISCOVERED ON MILK WE BY THE SUN

The telescope will continue to search in narrow slices of the sky for “free-floating objects of planetary mass (FFPs) [that] will be detected as isolated microlensing events with time scales shorter than a few days, “the authors wrote in the abstract of the study.

It could find objects with masses as small as Mars for those as large as gas giants with time scales as short as a few hours to “several tens of days,” they added, due to the sensitivity of the lens.

“The microlens signal of an evil planet lasts only between a few hours and a few days and is then gone forever,” added study co-author Matthew Penny. “This makes them difficult to observe from Earth, even with multiple telescopes. Novel is a game-changing quest for Evil Planet. ”

So far, only a few harmful planets have been found, including two that were found a few years ago, according to a 2018 study.

Not much is known about vicious planets, including where they consist of. NASA theorizes that they “can form in isolation from clouds of gas and dust, similar to how stars grow”, but that is just a theory.

It will be up to Roman to get a better idea of ​​exactly how they form and how many there are. The researchers believe the mission “could detect hundreds of rogue planets”, although they estimate that the damage to the planet could be 10 times more accurate than current estimates, which range from “tens of billions to trillions” in the Milky Way.

“The universe could grow with rogue planets and we would not even know it,” said study co-author Scott Gaudi. “We would never discover it without doing an in-depth, space-based microlensing survey like Roman will do.”

MOLKY WAY GALAXY COAL ‘OCEAN WORLDS’ HAVE ALL OVER, NASA SAYS

In total, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered by NASA, about 50 were believed to be potentially habitable as of September 2018. They have the exact size and orbit of their star to support surface water and, at least theoretically, to support life. .

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