ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

Home → Space → Astronomy

Closest rogue planet discovered is just 100 light-years away

Dragos MitricabyDragos Mitrica
November 15, 2012
in Astronomy, Discoveries, Remote sensing, Space
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Like in a scene from a Sci-fi novel, about 100 light years away, somewhere in the constellation Doradus, a planet is travelling around the galaxy by itself, without orbiting a parent star. This “rogue planet“, has a temperature of about 400C and a mass between 4 to 7 times that of Jupiter – close to the mass limit beyond which it would have become a brown dwarf.

The object, that so far has the captivating name of CFBDSIR2149, has been discovered while observing a region of space occupied by a group of about 30 stars called the AB Doradus Moving Group – a group of stars that have formed at the same time – most likely from the same initial gaseous nebulae. This fact was derived from the similarities in the composition, age and the similar direction of movement through space of the stars – which place the age of this group somewhere between 50 and 120 million years old – a reasonably young star group.

Artist's impression of the "rogue planet" CFBDSIR2149 discovered in the AB Doradus group of moving stars. (European Southern Observatory/AFP)
Artist’s impression of the “rogue planet” CFBDSIR2149 discovered in the AB Doradus group of moving stars. (European Southern Observatory/AFP)

The initial observations placed the object in the category of brown dwarfs – a class of sub-stellar objects – that are more massive then the biggest planets – the gas giants, yet they don’t have enough mass to start nuclear fusion. However, further analyses revealed that our object was in fact smaller than this – making it a planet – a gas giant. The whole detection was possible due to the fact that our “rogue” emits light in the infrared wavelengths.

Astronomers said that based on its estimated age, through computer models of planetary evolution, they were able to make further deductions regarding the planet’s mass – 4 to 7 times the mass of Jupiter, and surface temperature of 400 degrees Celsius (750 degrees Fahrenheit).

The planet was discovered during a survey using the infrared cameras of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, as study co-author Etienne Artigau of the University of Montreal said: “This object was discovered during a scan that covered the equivalent of 1,000 times the [area] of the full moon.”

Of course, this is not the first time such a “nomad planet” has been spotted, but this observation is special because it found the closest such object discovered so far – only 100 light years away, the first such planet that is relatively close to our solar system, as study co-author Etienne Artigau put it: “We observed hundreds of millions of stars and planets, but we only found one homeless planet in our neighbourhood“.

A big question in the case of all such rogue planets is how this planet came to be? Maybe it formed inside a solar system, just as any other planet, and got ejected afterwards – through gravitational interaction perhaps with a more massive object entering that system. Or it formed separate from any solar system from the beginning, similar to the formation of a star – through progressive accretion of the gas of a dense nebulae. This question remains open – and perhaps will remain for some time to come.

RelatedPosts

Saturn’s rings are raining down — in about 100 million years, they’ll be gone
Astronomers find water clouds on brown dwarf
Rogue Planets Could Outnumber Stars in the Milky Way
Nomad planets may litter Milky Way

Philippe Delorme of France’s Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics said: “these objects are important, as they can either help us understand more about how planets may be ejected from planetary systems, or how very light objects can arise from the star formation process.”

The findings were reported in the journal Solar and Stellar Astrophysics.

source: BBC

Tags: brown dwarfDoradus constellationgas giantrogue planetvery large telescope

ShareTweetShare
Dragos Mitrica

Dragos Mitrica

Dragos has been working in geology for six years, and loving every minute of it. Now, his more recent focus is on paleoclimate and climatic evolution, though in his spare time, he also dedicates a lot of time to chaos theory and complex systems.

Related Posts

This is an artist’s impression of the exoplanet 2M1510 (AB) b’s unusual orbit around its host stars, a pair of brown dwarfs. The newly discovered planet has a polar orbit, which is perpendicular to the plane in which the two stars are travelling. Polar planets around single stars had been found before, as well as polar discs of gas and dust capable of forming planets around binary stars. But thanks to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) this is the first time we have strong evidence that such a planet actually exists in a polar orbit around two stars. The two brown dwarfs appear as a single source in the sky, but astronomers know there are two of them because they periodically eclipse each other. Using the UVES spectrograph on the VLT they measured their orbital speed, and noticed that their orbits change over time. After carefully ruling out other explanations, they concluded that the gravitational tug of a planet in a polar orbit was the only way to explain the motion of the brown dwarfs.
Astronomy

Weirdest Planetary System Ever? Meet the Planet That Spins Perpendicular to Its Stars

byMihai Andrei
3 months ago
This artist’s visualisation of WASP-127b, a giant gas planet located about 520 light-years from Earth, shows its newly discovered supersonic jet winds that move around the planet’s equator. With a speed of 9 km per second (33 000 km/h), this is the fastest jetstream of its kind ever measured in the Universe. By tracking the speed of molecules in the atmosphere with the CRIRES+ instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, researchers found that one side of the planet’s atmosphere is moving towards us and the other away from us. This indicates that there is a powerful wind current going around the planet. 
News

A Gas Giant 500 Light-Years Away Has the Fastest Winds Ever Recorded: A Staggering 33,000 km/h

byTibi Puiu
5 months ago
Brown dwarfs are often called “failed stars.” They form like stars but are not massive enough to fuse hydrogen into helium as stars do. More like giant planets, brown dwarfs can often have storms in their atmospheres, as depicted in this illustration.  Astronomers have recently discovered three brown dwarfs that spin faster than any other ever discovered. Each one completes a single rotation in roughly an hour, about 10 times faster than normal.
News

Coldest radio-emitting star is colder than a camp fire

byJordan Strickler
2 years ago
News

Cosmic CSI: Researchers identify chemical fingerprints of first stars

byJordan Strickler
2 years ago

Recent news

SNR 0509-67.5

Astronomers Found a Star That Exploded Twice Before Dying

July 3, 2025

This Enzyme-Infused Concrete Could Turn Buildings into CO2 Sponges

July 3, 2025

Buried in a Pot, Preserved by Time: Ancient Egyptian Skeleton Yields First Full Genome

July 3, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
  • How we review products
  • Contact

© 2007-2025 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Science News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Space
  • Future
  • Features
    • Natural Sciences
    • Physics
      • Matter and Energy
      • Quantum Mechanics
      • Thermodynamics
    • Chemistry
      • Periodic Table
      • Applied Chemistry
      • Materials
      • Physical Chemistry
    • Biology
      • Anatomy
      • Biochemistry
      • Ecology
      • Genetics
      • Microbiology
      • Plants and Fungi
    • Geology and Paleontology
      • Planet Earth
      • Earth Dynamics
      • Rocks and Minerals
      • Volcanoes
      • Dinosaurs
      • Fossils
    • Animals
      • Mammals
      • Birds
      • Fish
      • Amphibians
      • Reptiles
      • Invertebrates
      • Pets
      • Conservation
      • Animal facts
    • Climate and Weather
      • Climate change
      • Weather and atmosphere
    • Health
      • Drugs
      • Diseases and Conditions
      • Human Body
      • Mind and Brain
      • Food and Nutrition
      • Wellness
    • History and Humanities
      • Anthropology
      • Archaeology
      • History
      • Economics
      • People
      • Sociology
    • Space & Astronomy
      • The Solar System
      • Sun
      • The Moon
      • Planets
      • Asteroids, meteors & comets
      • Astronomy
      • Astrophysics
      • Cosmology
      • Exoplanets & Alien Life
      • Spaceflight and Exploration
    • Technology
      • Computer Science & IT
      • Engineering
      • Inventions
      • Sustainability
      • Renewable Energy
      • Green Living
    • Culture
    • Resources
  • Videos
  • Reviews
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Editorial policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2025 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.