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Scientists find 170 'rogue' planets

WION Web Team
New DelhiUpdated: Dec 24, 2021, 01:18 AM IST
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These planets have been found within the Upper Scorpius and Ophiuchus constellations

Our ideas of planets and stars are often fixated on the model presented by our solar system. In solar system, the Sun is at the centre while planets move around it in respective orbits. For many of us, this is the model for all planets and star systems in the universe. We tend to think that planets and stars are always found in nice families such as our solar system.

But universe also has those planets that do not have stars to call their own. So what do these planet revolve around? They don't. They are space nomads who roam the infinite expanse on their. An estimate says that there are billions of such planets in our galaxy alone. These planets are like ghost ships that roam the seas blindly without anyone onboard to steer them right.

Researchers from Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux in France have found 170 pf such rogue planets. These researchers made use of European Southern Observatory resources to make the discovery.

Rogue planets are formed when swirls of gas and dust in space forms them but just isn't enough to form their star. Another possibility is that such rogue planets may be the ones hurled outside their star systems. But these rogue planets may have a faint heat signature. 

"We measured the tiny motions, the colors and luminosities of tens of millions of sources in a large area of the sky," says Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux astronomer and first author, Núria Miret-Roig. She was quoted by European Southern Observatory.

These planets have been found within the Upper Scorpius and Ophiuchus constellations. The study has been published in journal Nature Astronomy.