The opening of the new exoplanets, which is not linked to any star, perhaps, has little surprises. Over the past few years, astronomers have discovered such lonely worlds, they already know so much, that, in opinion of scientists, lonely wandering through the Universe the planet are the rule rather than the exception.

For example, one study of 2011 estimated that the number of planets-orphans in our galaxy already outnumber "normal" of the planets that revolve around their parent stars, not less than 50 percent. If so, then in the milky way galaxy has about a billion lonely planets.

Scientists believe that among the lonely planets Wanderers gas giants may be in the minority. "We now know that massive lonely planet are rare and that among them usually come across the planet, whose mass equal to the mass of Neptune or Lands, " said the astronomers. We also know that massive objects should be harder to break out of star systems than lighter".

It is incredible that lonely planet are relatively close to us. The telescopes of the future will help to learn more about the lonely planets that will not be visible because of the nearby bright stars.

Discovered a mysterious planet-orphan

Planet class of Jupiter, which is not linked to any star, and freely wandering in the vastness of the cosmos, was discovered by astronomers using direct observations. It is believed that this phenomenon is common, however, to follow such "planets-orphans" is very difficult.

The researchers were looking for stars, the so-called brown dwarfs, which are also sometimes called "the stars losers", because these objects could grow to the size of the star from collapsing balls of gas and dust, but they never reach the masses, which is required for their nuclei began thermonuclear reaction. However, when the scientists discovered object, which gave the name CFBDSIR2149, located at a distance of 130 light-years from Earth, they began to suspect that this was not a star.

Lonely planet or a star?

To determine the chemical composition of the object, the astronomers analyzed the infrared radiation of the object 2149. With these data, we could determine its mass and temperature, and then and age. They found that the object from 50 to 120 million years, its average temperature of 400 degrees Celsius, and the weight is 7 Jupiter masses.

"This is a planet similar to Jupiter in the first few millions of years of its existence, " said astrophysicist Stephen Ortigao (?tienne Artigau) from the University of Montreal. - I cannot say that for us it was an unexpected discovery, but to detect this object is very hard".

The first inklings of astronomers that they have discovered something strange was that the object 2149 had the company is very young group of stars. They suggested that the object was formed with these stars and quickly cooled, but it should mean that it is very small. It is also likely that the object may be a brown dwarf star, though rather small, which is adjacent with a moving star clusters AB Golden Fish.

However, a separate analysis showed that the object 2149 with probability 87-percent moves together with star clusters. This may mean that he has formed far from its parent star, or was pushed gravitational forces from the original star system.

After this discovery was followed by the indirect observations of 10 freely wandering planets the size of Jupiter, which are in the center of the milky Way and which were found by the method of detecting exoplanets called Gravitational microlensing.

This method assumes that a star or a planet passes in front of the other, more remote object. Gravitational forces due to the weight closer cosmic body distorts light of the distant object, causing the middle object to increase brightness on the certain period of time. Small objects such as planets, cause less distortion light than larger, such as stars.

Planet-orphans can also be seen in areas where the stars in the constellation Orion. "The first time we have found an object outside the area of star formation through direct observation" - said Ortigao. Astronomers will continue to study the object 2149 hoping to find out more detail regarding its position and direction of motion.

Source: news.discovery.com