Illustration of a wild planet covered in ice. Image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
SPACE — New predictions suggest the space telescope the United States Space Agency (NASA) is building will spot more than 400 Earth-mass planets hidden in the Milky Way galaxy. These hundreds of worlds are suspected to be wandering planets roaming alone in the galaxy.
Such orphaned worlds are thought to have started their lives in planetary systems, similar to solar systems. However, at one point it was kicked by a mechanism so far unknown.
Despite the common notion of planets orbiting stars neatly, new research suggests such starless worlds may outnumber the stars in the Milky Way by 20 to 1.
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That implies that there are about six times as many non-star-connected worlds in our galaxy as there are planets orbiting a parent star. “We estimate that our galaxy is home to 20 times more rogue planets than stars, trillions of lone wandering worlds. This is the first measurement of the number of rogue planets in a galaxy that is sensitive to planets less massive than Earth,” said study author and NASA senior scientist, David Bennett.
Usually, planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets, are detected by the effects they have on their host star. For example, an exoplanet could cause humans on Earth to witness the diminution of its star as the planet’s trajectory takes it between its star and our planet. Alternatively, an exoplanet could affect such light through the wobble it creates in the orbit of its host star while gravitationally tugging on starlight. But the fact that wandering planets are so far from their host star makes them difficult to detect.
One of the main goals of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, once it’s in the air, is to find the rogues. Previous estimates suggested Roman, which will launch in May 2027, will be able to find about 50 Earth-sized rogue planets. However, new findings have increased that number. Scientists imply a figure close to 400 planets. In fact, the same astronomers behind the find had already identified Earth-sized planet candidates for the Romans to investigate.
Bennett and his colleagues reached their conclusion with data collected over nine years of astronomical surveys called Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA). Conducted at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand, MOA searches for objects with the help of a phenomenon first predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity called gravitational lensing. It was something Roman would also use to hunt down ruffians.
Two papers explaining the team’s latest findings will be published in an upcoming issue of The Astronomical Journal. Source: Space.com
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2023-07-25 12:51:24
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