Mysterious free-floating ‘rogue planet’ may be even odder than we thought

[Buster's Uncle]

Mysterious ‘rogue planet’ floating through space may be even odder than we thought
Yahoo News UK
Rob Waugh  March 16, 2017



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A rogue planet spotted wandering through space on its own may be even stranger than scientists expected, after new analysis with NASA’s Spitzer space telescope.

The object, CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9, is 100 light years away from Earth – and was spotted in 2012.

Scientists are now puzzling over what the mysterious object is – is it a rogue, free-floating planet, or something even stranger?

Scientists now believe that the planet – found in 2012 – might be a ‘brown dwarf’ – an object too small to be a star, but too big to be a planet.

The researchers believe it’s either a young planet (around 500 million years old) – or a much older brown dwarf, ith a mass ranging from two to 40 Jupiter masses.

‘CFBDSIR 2149-0403 is an atypical substellar object that is either a ‘free-floating planet’ or a rare high-metallicity brown dwarf. Or a combination of both,’ said Dr Philippe Delorme from Grenoble Alpes University in France.

‘We now reject our initial hypothesis that CFBDSIR 2149-0403 would be a member of the AB Doradus moving group.

‘Though determining that certainly improved our knowledge of the object it also made it more difficult to study, by adding age as a free parameter.’


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