Using the facilities of the European Southern Observatory, astronomers identified as many as 170 planets moving freely in the corners of the galaxy. This planet is formed from a vortex of gas and space dust that has accumulated to become a planet.
“There may be many more free-floating, free-roaming giant planets in the Milky Way without a parent star,” Hervé Bouy, astronomer at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux in France, was quoted as saying. Science Alert, Friday (12/24/2021).
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Planet what astronomers have observed does not have light reflected from its parent star. Separated from the solar system, they do not follow orbital paths that might identify them as exoplanets.
By scanning the faint radiation signature in the center of the image taken using ESO’s high-powered telescope, astronomers were able to compile a large list of wild planet candidates in the constellations Upper Scorpius and Ophiuchus.
“We measured tiny motion, color, and luminosity from tens of millions of sources over a large area of the sky,” said astronomer Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux and first author, Núria Miret-Roig.
Roig estimates that of the 170 planets, only 70 actually qualify to be called planets. “These measurements allowed us to identify the faintest object in this region, a wild but safe planet,” he said.
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Astronomers find it difficult with current technology to identify 170 planet the. Fortunately, in the near future, scientists will send a new telescope with high technology that can see the entire solar system, even in space where there is no sunlight.
“These objects are very faint and there is little that can be done to study them with current facilities. The ELT (Extremely Large Telescope) will be very important to gather more information about most of the rogue planets we find,” he said.
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