Orphan "planets" discovered
Japanese astronomers say they have found free-floating “planets” that don’t orbit a star—at least 10 Jupiter-sized objects that they couldn’t connect to a solar system, the BBC reports. Writing in the journal Nature, these scientists say the objects could be as common as are stars in the Milky Way. Measuring using bends of light in more distant stars, the scientists found evidence of 10 Jupiter-size objects with no parent stars within 10 Astronomical Units (AU), one of which equals the distance of the Sun to the Earth. After analyzing them further, they concluded these planets don’t have parent stars. Based on the numbers found, they predict orphan planets could be very common.
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