SPACE – Most astronomers agree that there are only four terrestrial, or rocky, planets in our solar system, and all of them are located near the sun. However, new research suggests there are still five more planets that may be hiding at the outer reaches of the solar system.
Free-floating planets (FFPs) are planet-sized objects that do not orbit stars. Often called rogue planets and rogue planets, FFPs form from clumps of gas that are not connected to any stars, or appear around stars but are ejected from their original orbits.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has identified hundreds of rogue planets in the Milky Way and beyond, including a pair of Jupiter-sized planets wandering in the belly of the constellation Orion. Simulations show that most of the FFP is probably as large as Mars.
In addition to chasing away some rogue planets, stars can also attract lonely wandering planets with their gravity, making them permanent members of the planetary system that orbits them. In new research, published December 18, 2023 in Astrophysical Journal Letters, a researcher proposes that our sun, in its infancy, may have also attracted some rocky FFPs.
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To determine this possibility, study author Amir Siraj, a doctoral candidate in Astrophysics at Princeton University and director of the Interstellar Object Studies program, used several models or sets of equations that he developed. The simulation was built based on FFP observations.
Assuming that our young star had a 1 in 50 chance of trapping a rogue planet, Siraj ran 100 million simulations, adjusting factors such as the shape of the orbit to determine how many rocky worlds could be captured by the sun. Siraj also assumed that the Sun’s birth environment was narrow enough that he could estimate the numbers in the worst-case scenario. “Because under such circumstances capturing the planet is more difficult,” Siraj wrote to Live Science via email.
The study discovered two planets with Mars-like masses or three to five planets with Mercury-like masses, perhaps about 1,400 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. One AU is the distance between the Earth and the sun. This would place the rogue planets trapped in the Oort Cloud, a hypothetical giant bubble containing billions of mountain-sized icy objects enveloping the solar system.
The new planets are independent of Planet X, an unknown Neptune-like world hypothesized to orbit about 43 AU from the sun. Contrary to the new study which is based on theory, scientists estimate the existence of the Planet
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While the captured terrestrial world is likely more Earth-like than Planet X, its suitability as a habitable region remains speculative. Even though the water may be a layer of ice, the sunlight will be very dim due to the distance. “Comparable to the brightness of moonlight on Earth,” Siraj said.
However, because the theorized planets come from other star systems and are therefore exoplanets, future space missions investigating exoplanets will likely target them. However, finding the proposed new planet will be more difficult than identifying the Planet
Siraj believes that the Vera C Rubin Observatory under construction in Chile, expected to become operational in 2025, could identify former FFPs located less than 700 AU. However, he noted, that could happen if it is in the southern sky and close enough to us, with a high enough albedo or ability to reflect the light shining on it. Source: Science Live
2024-01-17 10:29:00
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