Astronomy
Wandering Lonely Planet Discovered
When we think of planets, the image is of these majestic globes orbiting around their parent star or stars as part of the family solar system. Astronomers working on the Canada-France Brown Dwarfs Survey (CFBDS), which as the title implies is a survey of space looking for exotic brown dwarf objects. Brown dwarfs are literally failed stars and regarded as substellar objects, which although some 75-80 times the mass of gas giant planet Jupiter, are too low in mass to sustain hydrogen-1 fusion reactions in their cores like a fully-fledged star can. Like Jupiter size gas giants, brown dwarfs have a fully convective atmosphere as seen by turbulent cloud movement driven from below the surface through producing their own heat in the immense core pressure. They occupy the mass range between that of large gas giant planets & lowest-mass stars. Normally Brown dwarfs also orbit the main star(s) in their system but could also be given the nudge to roam by nearby larger mass objects.
The wandering object recently discovered by the team and designated CFBDSIR2149 (no nice mythological name is given just a dry sequential name and number!), may not be a brown dwarf as such, but a large gas giant only 4- 7 times the mass of Jupiter that failed to be even a brown dwarf. Perhaps this abject failure to be even classed a failed star, meant that poor old CFBDSIR2149, when created was ejected from its home solar system, like an orphan and now wanders alone in empty space:-(
Such interstellar planets and brown dwarfs can orbit at the edges of their home solar system and ultimately may have been pulled from their orbits by nearby massive objects stars etc., it may have even happened in our solar system in the distant past, particularly soon after its formation. With the continuing discovery of new planets and solar systems, it is thought that such starless worlds may be extremely common across the galaxy. Recent theories also suggest that some of these planets may harbor organic material or even primitive life in their atmospheres.
CFBDSIR2149 is nearby to our solar system being just 100 light-years from Earth
A light-year is the distance light travels in one year at a speed of 186, 000 miles per second (300,000 km per sec). A light-year = 10 trillion kilometers (or about 6 trillion miles). Therefore CFBDSIR2149 is approx 1000 trillion km away(600 trillion miles), which astronomically and cosmologically speaking is lurking in the neighborhood!
As these nomad planets no longer have a host sun to reflect light from and so be seen in the darkness of space, a new study says that such planets can be detected from their immense auroras (lightning displays), or internal heat if it has an active core (using infrared observations).
