Published: 01:15 AM, 11 August 2018
Scientists discover 'rogue planet' outside solar system
Scientists have made the first radio-telescope detection of a huge free-floating planet beyond our solar system, a new study said, source Xinhua.
The planetary-mass object, called SIMP J01365663+0933473, is about a dozen times more massive than Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and has surprisingly strong magnetic fields, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal earlier this week.
Scientists detected the enormous planet from the U.S.-based Very Large Array observatory. Wandering some 20 light years away from the sun, the 200-million-year-old planet has been dubbed "rogue planet" as it is traveling through space without orbiting any parent star.
"This object is right at the boundary between a planet and a brown dwarf, or 'failed star,' and is giving us some surprises that can potentially help us understand magnetic processes on both stars and planets," Melodie Kao, leader of the study and Hubble postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University, said in a press release.
