Astronomers say they've spotted lonesome planet without a sun

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."

*source

IMHO, this is fascinating discovery. Only 6 times more massive then largest planet in our solar system, which is huge compared to earth. But existence of planet without sun means that we are out for surprising findings of more smaller objects as our technology improves.

Wonder if this planet formed and was catapulted from newly formed sun or it is just formed from materials collected through its life, but never developed into system/star...

Was just reading this article on The Independent website 5 minutes ago. The planet only formed around 12 million years ago, so its a very young planet.

Heres an artists impression of the planet PSO J318.5-22



80 Light years away, just floating in space..

reply to post by SuperFrog


Hurray for technolgy!
They can find a planet, which casts no light of it's own, at a distance of 80 light years.
Yet, they have trouble finding a way to find and keep up with the many near-earth objects which could end life on our planet.
You would think someone would develope a simple means of keeping these things in check. It will only take one and ......

reply to post by SuperFrog


Very nice find OP, wonder if its chemical material make up can be detected.
SnF

I have to wonder where this planet came from. Without any additional information, I would say the most likely source is our solar system.

If the planet was traveling a mere 15,000 mph straight away from Earth, it would only take 45,000 years to get to it's current position. 80 light years is actually pretty close.

Observations over a period of years should yield a rough trajectory. Should be interesting.

InverseLookingGlass
I have to wonder where this planet came from. Without any additional information, I would say the most likely source is our solar system.

If the planet was traveling a mere 15,000 mph straight away from Earth, it would only take 45,000 years to get to it's current position. 80 light years is actually pretty close.

Observations over a period of years should yield a rough trajectory. Should be interesting.

What? How did you arrive at those figures. If it was traveling 22k mph it would take like 2,560,000 years to travel 80 light years which BTW is most definitely NOT CLOSE. Either way why would you speculate its origin as our solar system?

reply to post by SuperFrog

there's a world that's just six times more massive than Jupiter, floating all alone without a sun to keep it warm,

Keeps itself warm. Because of its mass, Jupiter generates more energy from its core than it receives from the sun. This "planet" is more a too small to be a star thing than a planet thing. The artists rendering of it "glowing" is accurate?

Still neat to hear about. The imagination runs wild. An orphaned proto star wandering the heavens looking for material to absorb and become an adult star.

'Just six times the mass of Jupiter', forsooth!

That's about five times the mass of the entire solar system — minus the Sun, of course.

From the OP's linked article:

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.

So it's radiating a lot of heat.

PSO J318.5-22 was discovered while the researchers was combing through data from Pan-STARRS 1 for readings from brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are typically faint and red, but Liu and his colleagues said PSO J318.5-22 stood out because it was redder than the reddest known brown dwarfs.

Quite a lot of heat.

This could be a Dyson sphere.

How where they able to find this planet without a sun?

It has no sun therefore it has no light to reflect back into space....

muse7
How where they able to find this planet without a sun?

It has no sun therefore it has no light to reflect back into space....

They used infrared telescopes to detect its heat signature. If it had an atmosphere like earths you would still be able to see the stars from that planet just like here soooooo.....

No Red Kachina or Nibiru comments yet? Surprising really!

muse7
How where they able to find this planet without a sun?

It has no sun therefore it has no light to reflect back into space....

Internal heat it is a HUGE planet larger than Jupiter so with Infrared imaging is how.

InverseLookingGlass
I have to wonder where this planet came from. Without any additional information, I would say the most likely source is our solar system.

If the planet was traveling a mere 15,000 mph straight away from Earth, it would only take 45,000 years to get to it's current position. 80 light years is actually pretty close.

Observations over a period of years should yield a rough trajectory. Should be interesting.

Not sure how you got your numbers, or its direction for that matter. If you have read article, you will find out that they actually follow it for over 2 years and were not sure of classification, but after long observing they figure out that it was actually planet - not a red dwarf star.

muse7
How where they able to find this planet without a sun?

It has no sun therefore it has no light to reflect back into space....

They actually said that it much easier then if planet is close to a sun - large source of heat. This is not first time they found object believe to float around without star, but it is first one that they confirmed it is planet rather then a star.

What info on the movement of this object?
What is it near?

Is it close enough to be a planet from our Solar System?

Willtell
What info on the movement of this object?
What is it near?

Is it close enough to be a planet from our Solar System?

It's moving
Nothing
No.

The team concluded that PSO J318.5-22 is associated with a collection of young stars called the Beta Pictoris moving group, which formed about 12 million years ago. The best-known star in that group, Beta Pictoris, is known to harbor a gas-giant planet that's about eight times as massive as Jupiter.

That area breeds some massive planets!

It fascinates me, out of the infinity of space, we can pinpoint planets with such accuracy. Also since Beta Pictoris moving group is the closest group of relatively young stars to Earth for study, there is heaps of information to glean from research.

The idea of a Dyson Sphere is freaking awesome! It so could be one!

Beta Pictoris moving group
Beta Pictoris

Willtell
What info on the movement of this object?
What is it near?

Is it close enough to be a planet from our Solar System?

"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."

(From link in first post)

Because of age, size and distance, it is very doubtful there is any connection to our solar system.

They don't know yet as if it was part of some solar system or it just formed by itself... (star without enough material to start reaction)

Awww, poor lonely little planet. This one goes out to Planet PSO J318.5-22:




Interesting that it is considered to be young. Guess this planet could throw yet another curve ball into theories of planet formation.

InverseLookingGlass
I have to wonder where this planet came from. Without any additional information, I would say the most likely source is our solar system.
...

There are atleast 50 other stars that are within 16 light years of our solar system.
So why you would say our system is its likely source is absurd, as there are likely 100s of stars closer to this planet than us.