glimpses population freefloating planets

#GLIMPSES POPULATION FREEFLOATING PLANETS SERIES#

“A free-floating planet can be ejected from its orbit around a star at any point in the star’s life, but we think it should be most common when stars form, so learning about free-floating planets tells us a lot about how planetary systems form too. Free-floating planets are probably formed after these heavier bodies “sling-shotted” lighter planets out of orbit, which then end up floating freely through space.ĭr McDonald, now a lecturer in Astrophysics at the OU, said: Planets normally form around a host star, but their orbits can be influenced by the gravitational tug of other, heavier planets and stars in the system. These new events do not show an accompanying longer signal that might be expected from a host star, suggesting that these new events may be free-floating planets. The ageing Kepler telescope captured the planets (photo: copyright NASA) However, the four shortest events are new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth. Many of these had been previously seen in data obtained simultaneously from the ground. The study team found 27 short-duration candidate microlensing signals that varied over timescales of between an hour and 10 days. Signals from planets of similar masses to the Earthĭuring this two-month campaign, Kepler monitored a crowded field of millions of stars near the centre of our Galaxy every 30 minutes in order to find rare gravitational microlensing events. The study, led by Iain McDonald of The Open University (with his former team at University of Manchester) used data obtained in 2016 during the K2 mission phase of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth, published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Tantalising evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of “free-floating” planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star.

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#GLIMPSES POPULATION FREEFLOATING PLANETS SERIES#

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Glimpses population freefloating planets