Astronomers say they've spotted lonesome planet without a sun

[Octafish]

Source: NBC News

Eighty light-years from Earth, there's a world that's just six times more massive than Jupiter, floating all alone without a sun to keep it warm, astronomers reported Wednesday.

Such free-floaters have been reported before, but in the past, it hasn't always been clear whether these were orphaned planets or failed stars. This time, the scientists say they're sure it's a planet.

"We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this," team leader Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa said in a news release. "It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone. I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do."

The heat signature of the world, known as PSO J318.5-22, was identified by the Pan-STARRS 1 wide-field survey telescope on Haleakala, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The light coming from the object is about 100 billion times fainter in optical wavelengths than the planet Venus. Most of its energy is emitted in infrared wavelengths.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/astronomers-say-theyve-spotted-lonesome-planet-without-sun-8C11366309

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[Paulie]

1. "Only" six times the mass of Jupiter

Space is big with big things in it...

[closeupready]

12. Yeah, stuff like this makes me feel REALLY small.

[srican69]

31. check this out for understanding scale

[nomorenomore08]

46. I've seen that before. But it's pretty astonishing, more so when you consider the amount of empty

space between stars, or between galaxies. Most of the universe is empty void with nothing but a few stray hydrogen molecules floating around.

[Liberalynn]

2. Cool

Thanks for posting this.

[Heather MC]

3. I think it's a death star cloaking as a planet

Ok sorry too much Sify but what if???

[NoodleyAppendage]

4. Dark matter complication?

Couldn't the existence of such massive "free floaters" serve as a better explanation than estoteric and heretofore unproven "dark matter?"

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. They would have to be more numerous than stars and/or more massive.

According to the Planck mission team, and based on the standard model of cosmology, the total mass–energy of the universe contains 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy.[2][3] Thus, dark matter is estimated to constitute 84.5% of the total matter in the universe and 26.8% of the total content of the universe.

Thus it is more than 5 times the amount of ordinary matter (contained mostly in stars). If it were all in "free floaters", there would have to 5 times as many of them as stars, if they were the same mass on average, or they would have to be on average five times the mass of average stars if there were equal numbers.

Such immense or so many many objects would have been observed frequently long before now.

Here is the mass of the sun versus the planets. Even six times the mass of Jupiter would not be much in the scheme of things. Note: any smaller than Saturn are too small to appear. The sun is an average star.

[DeSwiss]

24. I've seen that graph before.....

[LiberalFighter]

42. Thought it was a picture of a butt crack.

[NoodleyAppendage]

43. Well reasoned. Thanks!

Works for me. I still like the idea of a multitude of rogue planets...if only because it presents a complication for any sort of warp or worm hole type transportation.

[On the Road]

5. The Question Is:

If it doesn't have a sun, how can it be a planet?

[jsr]

14. I think it orbits a galaxy, not a star

[Soylent Brice]

21. bad orbit, ejected during

the formation of a star and planetary bodies.

[struggle4progress]

44. That would be my guess. Playing with orbital simulators, available on line, will suggest

that stable systems can sometimes be tricky to obtain

Here's a nice simulator

[MicaelS]

28. What else would you call it? n/t

[On the Road]

29. I Don't Know,

in common usage, orbiting a star is part of the definition of a planet. The Google definition is:

1. a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit around a star

A free-floating planet doesn't really meet the definition. Maybe the astronomical definition is broader to include include objects like this, but Astronomy.com, the IAU, and the Dept of Earth and Space Sciences all define planet in terms of orbiting around the sun or a star.

[MicaelS]

30. The term usually used is "Rogue Planet".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet

also known as an interstellar planet, nomad planet, free-floating planet or orphan planet

A rogue planet — also known as an interstellar planet, nomad planet, free-floating planet or orphan planet — is a planetary-mass object which has either been ejected from its system or was never gravitationally bound to any star, brown dwarf or other such object, and that therefore orbits the galaxy directly. Astronomers agree that either way, the definition of planet should depend on its current observable state and not its origin.

Larger planetary-mass objects which were not ejected, but have always been free-floating, are thought to have formed in a similar way to stars, and the IAU has proposed that those objects be called sub-brown dwarfs (an example of this is Cha 110913-773444, which may be an ejected rogue planet or may have formed on its own and be a sub-brown dwarf).The closest rogue planet to Earth yet discovered, PSO_J318.5-22, is around 80 light years away.

The subject is fascinating, and I'm glad to see more attention being paid to this subject.

[tclambert]

36. I thought Mars was a rouge planet.

[moriah]

38. It does blush rather prettily, doesn't it? n/t

[Posteritatis]

45. Rogue planets are new enough that existing terminology doesn't cover them.

All the definitions you're looking at predate the discovery of rogues.

[Happyhippychick]

6. Is it my grammar nazi tendencies or would this have been more appropriate to say "lone" planet?

I haven't googled yet but "lonesome" to me sounds like the planet is sad and lonely. That makes me feel bad for the planet.

[dembotoz]

8. you are right, maybe it is quite happy

[moriah]

39. If cold....

... very, very cold....

[Berlum]

7. No Sun? No Light? It must be the Republicon "Homeland"

Last edited Thu Oct 10, 2013, 09:23 PM - Edit history (1)

...that place of darkness and Corporate Fascist, Inc. control. How lovely for the RepubliBaggers to know where they belong, so they can stop crapping all over the United States of America and ship out to their gawdforsaken Darkside Homeland, Inc. (R).

[Liberalagogo]

9. Salutations and felicitations, Hip-hip Hurrah... Tally-Ho!

From the Squire of Gothos

[seveneyes]

11. What direction is it moving?

If it has no sun to orbit, its momentum from whatever it did once orbit has to have it headed somewhere other than its relative movement from the big bang. Is it coming or going?

[darkangel218]

17. Both

[bitchkitty]

13. They should name it Lonesome.

I like this new planet.

[kydo]

15. I wonder is that's Romney's planet

Isn't he supposed to get one being a Mormon and all? or is it tom cruise's scientology that gives you a planet? I always get the two confused.

[Uncle Joe]

16. This thread needs a theme song.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Javaman]

18. sounds like the republican party. nt

[L0oniX]

19. They are going to call it Bachman or ...

[ashling]

20. Must be a tear in the cosmic retina

Such free-floaters have been reported before, but in the past, it hasn't always been clear whether these were orphaned planets or failed stars. This time, the scientists say they're sure it's a planet.

But Pluto gets no respect?

[MillennialDem]

32. If Pluto is a planet, you have to consider Ceres a planet. And several others.

[ashling]

41. My pluto coment was tounge in cheek

[lanlady]

22. Cruzania?

n/t

[DeSwiss]

23. Oh, that!?!?

- That's the redlight planet. Invitation only.....

K&R

[center][/center]

[Dr. Strange]

25. That's no planet.

[truthisfreedom]

26. Runaway world!

[sakabatou]

27. It could've been thrown out from an early solar system

with bigger planets swinging it out during formation.

[penultimate]

33. Looks like a tiny speck on the lens... They should have someone wipe that down.

[Emit]

34. Maybe it's Planet X, Nibiru

and the Anunnaki

[Politicub]

35. Aimless wandering

Just like the GOP.

When the government gets funded, can we have Nasa build a ship that looks like a teapot? And use it to send all of the traitorous tea party scum to their own world so they can create their brutal paradise?

[Towlie]

37. There's already a teapot out there waiting for them, orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

[Politicub]

47. That's their mothership

Powered by sugar cubes and stupidity.

[AndyTiedye]

40. That Ain't No Moon