Strange Lonely Planet Found without a Star..

 A newly young and exotic planet has been discovered that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet  is  dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light years away from Earth and has mass only six times that of Jupiter. This Planet was formed merely 12 million years ago-newborn in planet lifetimes.

It was identified from its faint and unique heat signature by PAN-STARRS 1(PS1), wide field survey telescope on Haleakala, Maui. Follow up ovservations using other telescopes in Hawaii show that it has propertiess similar to those of gas giants planets found orbiting around young stars. And yet PSO J318.5-22 is all by itself, without a host star.

"We have never seen an object free-floating in space that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone," explained team leader Dr.Michael Liu if Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "I had often misunderstood if such solitary objects exists, and now we know they do."

During the past decade , extrasolar planets have been discovered at an incredible pace, with about a thousand found by indirect methods such as wobbling or dimming of their host stars induced by the planet. However, only a handful of planets have been directly imaged, all ow which are around young stars(less than 200 million years old). PSO J318.5-22 is one of the lowest mass free floating objects known, perhaps the very lowest. But its most unique aspect is its similar mass, color, and energy output to the directly imaged planets.

"Planets found by directing imaging are incredibly hard to study, since they are right next to their much brighter host stars. PSO J318.5-22 is not orbiting a star so it will be much easier for us to study. It is going to provide a wonderful view into the inner workings of gas-giant planets like Jupiter shortly after their birth," said Dr.Niall Deacon of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany and a co-author of the study.


"We often describe looking for rare celestial objects as akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. So we decided to search the biggest haystack that exists in astronomy, the dataset from PS1," said Dr.Eugene Magnier of the institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a co author of the study. Dr.Magnier leads the data processing team for PS1, which produces the equivalent of 60000 iPhone photos every night. The total dataset to date is about 4000 Terabytes., bigger than the sum of digital version of all movies made, all books published , and all music albums ever released.


By regularly monitoring the position of PSO J318.5-22 over two years with the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope, the team directly measured its distance from earth .Based on this distance, about 80 light years , and its motion through space, the team concluded that PSO J318.5-22 belongs to a collection of young stars called the Beta Pictoris moving group that formed about 12 million years ago. In fact, the eponymous star of the group , Beta Pictoris , has a young gas giant planet in the orbit around it. PSO J318.5-22 is even lower in mass than the Beta Pictoris planet and probably formed in a different fashion.

 

We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone," explained team leader Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do."

We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone," explained team leader Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do."

This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes.

This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes.

This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes.

This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes.