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Probable Rogue Planet Spotted

Posted by Unknown on from the omarion-nebula dept.

Maow writes with news of a sighting of a rogue gas giant: "'This object was discovered during a scan that covered the equivalent of 1,000 times the [area] of the full moon,' said study co-author Etienne Artigau of the University of Montreal. 'We observed hundreds of millions of stars and planets, but we only found one homeless planet in our neighborhood.' This planet appears to be an astonishingly young 50-120 million years old. The original paper is on the arXiv. Here's hoping the Mayan End-of-World-2012 people don't seize upon this as some kind of impending rogue planet on a collision course with Earth, but one can expect it'll be bantered about on such forums." From the article: "The team believe it has a temperature of about 400C and a mass between four and seven times that of Jupiter - well short of the mass limit that would make it a likely brown dwarf."

22 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe their eagles by future+assassin · · Score: 4, Funny

    can reach earth before they get too far?

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    1. Re:Maybe their eagles by macraig · · Score: 5, Informative

      You should have at least capitalized Eagles to give people a better hint that you were referring to Space: 1999. The way you did it was just kinda cruel to younger geeks and SF nerds.

    2. Re:Maybe their eagles by macraig · · Score: 4, Informative

      Poorly executed name-drop of Space:1999

  2. Fleet of Worlds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Spotted it! Those puppeteers are going to have to come up with a new plan now, or give me one million stars to not reveal the secret.

    1. Re:Fleet of Worlds? by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, you're bought easily. I'd have the information in a hundred scattered dead drops and ask for a General Products hull franchise.

  3. homeless by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Funny

    we only found one homeless planet in our neighborhood

    Either the galactic economy is going well, or they are good at hiding the problems.

  4. How's that? by mcmonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Given that the definition of a planet is dependent on the relationship between objects (planet and star, planet and moon, planet and other objects in the same orbit), how can something be classified as a type of planet if there are no observations of that object in relation to other objects in a planetary system?

    1. Re:How's that? by icebike · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And how do you determine the age of some random rocky mass that you can't even image?

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    2. Re:How's that? by Zephyn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Exoplanets use a different set of definitions according to the IAU

    3. Re:How's that? by Walking+The+Walk · · Score: 4, Informative

      And how do you determine the age of some random rocky mass that you can't even image?

      According to the BBC article, they simply guessed the age. The sub-brown dwarf or rogue planet seems to be travelling with a group of stars, and they've estimated the age of the stars to be 50 - 120 million years. It's a form of extra-solar profiling: That thing over there isn't a star, but it's hanging out with those other stars, so it must the same age as them. (Which is apparently OK to do for stars, but not people?)

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    4. Re:How's that? by osu-neko · · Score: 5, Informative

      ...and it should be noted, by the IAU definition, this "rogue planet" is not a planet at all. It's a "sub-brown dwarf".

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      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    5. Re:How's that? by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Informative

      Based on a quick scan of the paper, it looks like they did a spectral and photometry analysis based on it's estimated size, compared it to their atmospheric models, and determined a probable age. They did image it, BTW, just not very clearly since it is pretty far away (sticks out like a proverbial sore thumb on infrared, thanks to it's warmth). They also matched that to probable origins based on it's path and determined a likely group to which it belongs, which helps confirm the age slightly. Note that this estimate is rather tentative, since it's hard to say exactly.

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    6. Re:How's that? by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not only is it ok to do with people, it's also pretty helpful. In fact, it's pretty much the basis for any demographical assumption.

      Hang out at the mall, typically around 4pm-8pm, with a bunch of people aged 14-17 and I can be fairly sure that your texting plan is well utilized.

      Take a look at a bus headed towards a slots 'casino'. You can see everyone in the bus but the driver is 60+ years old. Want to wager on the age of the person in the lavatory?

      Stop by the maternity ward of a hospital. Glance through the glass and take a guess at the age of the person in the third crib from the right.

      The nursery example above I like because for these new stars, there are regions where stars tend to be of similar age, composition, dispersal density. If you look at a region of space where everything is roughly the same age, or same type, or composition, it would be exceptionally odd to find something that was different.

      A perfect situation to apply Occam's Razor in my opinion. If everything else is pretty much normal to the region, then you would need a special case to describe something not normal to the area. For example:

      1. Planet formed elsewhere, and wandered in just as the stars formed. (Requires extra steps for this to be true, and the original hypothesis to be false)

      2. Planet formed before the stars in the region and the stars formed later. (Requires the planet to acquire enough gas to become large, but somehow stopped aggregating matter in a region which has enough to form stars, long enough for OTHER gravitationally strong objects to amass enough to becoem stars)

      I can go on, but it gets complex.

      A planet forming elsewhere would have an extremely high velocity relative to the velocity of the stars in the region. If you can detect it now, then you can detect it later. And 100 LY is close enough that you wouldn't have to wait long to determine the magnitude of that motion. You would know if it was 'just passing through', and since it is a rogue planet, by definition it isn't caught up with any of the stars and thus 'just passing through means it must be at least as old as the distance from the 'formation region' / velocity. But if it is travelling with the stars of that region, then it is very unlikely that it originated elsewhere and thus the question of "How could a very massive planet form in a region with enough matter to form fully fledged stars PAUSE in it's aggregation of matter?"

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  5. Why hope? by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First, in the summary you forget to identify the distance: 100ly. Well, that pretty much rules out any worry of a collision even if at such a distance the alignment would be astronomically unlikely to be one which would allow for a collision.

    Second, why does anyone care if there is a 'spike' in discussion with the 2012 doomsayers? You think there WOULDN'T be a spike in discussion around December 2012? And who cares if there is? The good news, is that by January, all the 2012 end of the world nonsense will be over (Even if they are right ;) )

    My problem isn't any of that however. My problem is THIS travesty from the article:

    One tricky part is determining if rogue planet candidates are as massive as the "failed stars" known as brown dwarfs, further along in stellar evolution but without enough mass to spark the nuclear fusion that causes starlight.

    It's so freaking wrong I can't even parse it to bitch about it in any specific manner. And to me, that's the worst thing that could happen. If I can't complain, I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

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    1. Re:Why hope? by geekoid · · Score: 5, Funny

      You are part of the problem. Let me explain.

      ", I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
      should be:
      ", I don't want them to live on this planet anymore."

      Think Ark B.

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    2. Re:Why hope? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The good news, is that by January, all the 2012 end of the world nonsense will be over

      The bad news is that, by January, the next end of the world nonsense will begin.

      --
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    3. Re:Why hope? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Second, why does anyone care if there is a 'spike' in discussion with the 2012 doomsayers? You think there WOULDN'T be a spike in discussion around December 2012? And who cares if there is? The good news, is that by January, all the 2012 end of the world nonsense will be over (Even if they are right ;) )

      No, such people don't adjust their beliefs to match reality. There will be endless theories about how it really meant 2013, how the calendar is off by a little, or how we're just reading it wrong.

      In fact, I expect them to spend a lot of time defending their position and trying to adapt their broken theory so it isn't quite so broken (according to their logic that is).

      Expect this bit of silliness to drag on for years.

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    4. Re:Why hope? by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...Second, why does anyone care if there is a 'spike' in discussion with the 2012 doomsayers? You think there WOULDN'T be a spike in discussion around December 2012? And who cares if there is? The good news, is that by January, all the 2012 end of the world nonsense will be over (Even if they are right ;) )...

      I actually find the "2012 end of the world" hokum to be quite useful. It helps me identify the idiots. Somehow get the Mayan 2012 calendar end as the subject of conversation in a group and then note who buys into it. Do not ask these people anything in the way of meaningful questions. Stick to subjects like what they watched on television if you must talk to them although even that can be scary.

      Cheers,
      Dave

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    5. Re:Why hope? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Informative

      A Black Dwarf is not actually a gas giant which was never a star, but rather the end point of evolution of a white dwarf (which is itself the post-fusion remnant of main sequence stars like the sun), when it cools off and is no longer emitting significant amounts of light (even in infrared). None of these are thought to exist because it's going to take much longer than the current age of the universe (as in 10,000 times the current age of the universe or more) for the white dwarfs to cool off to that degree.

      A Brown Dwarf is a sub-stellar object, i.e. something that was never a star undergoing sustained fusion, and while the larger ones would be expected to glow in the low visible range (red), and of course infrared, the smaller ones at around 500K may not glow in visible light at all yet are still classified as brown dwarfs instead of planets. The boundary is a little fuzzy. In any case, though, they'd never appear "brown" from their emitted light.

      Dwarf terminology is weird.

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  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. too primitive for my tastes.. by smitty97 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let me know when they discover a nethack planet.

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  8. may or may not be the first by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Informative

    For details we turn to our usual correspondent...

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