RTFri, 03 Aug 2018 14:54 UTC
© Chuck Carter, NRAO/AUI/NSFArtist's impression of the enormous object known as SIMP J01365663+0933473
A mysterious large object is floating around outside our solar system and researchers aren't sure exactly what it is - although it could be a rogue planet.
In the first radio-telescope detection of a planetary-mass object beyond our solar system
, astronomers have found the strange celestial body has 12.7 times the mass of Jupiter. It doesn't appear to orbit a parent star, however, and is only 20 light-years away from Earth."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," study lead astronomer Melodie Kao
said.
A brown dwarf is an object too large to be a planet, but isn't big enough to sustain the nuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core that is vital to stars.
The object, which has been named SIMP J01365663+0933473, was first detected in 2016, but
was thought to be a brown dwarf. The latest data reveals it's younger than first thought at a relatively youthful 200 million years old, and its mass is smaller, so it could be classified as a planet. Its temperature is also far cooler than the sun, at 825 degrees Celsius.
It also has a strong magnetic field, 200 times the strength of Jupiter.The researchers were able to pick up on the object's magnetic activity using a powerful radio astronomy observatory called the Very Large Array, a National Science Foundation facility in New Mexico.
The methods used suggest the researchers may have
"a new way of detecting exoplanets, including the elusive rogue ones not orbiting a parent star," researcher Gregg Hallinan said.
Comment: We previously ran this with the title '
Mysterious gigantic rogue planet...'
But in fact, when this was first observed in 2016, it was categorized as a star, albeit a Brown Dwarf 'dark star', which are, generally, companions to suns.
20 light years makes it too far away to be Sol's companion, but it's the behavior of this celestial body that is striking: the above write-up doesn't mention it, but one of the surprise discoveries is that
it's producing spectacular auroras!
Combined with its powerful magnetic field, these things are only 'supposed' to happen when the solar wind from its sun - the 'primary' star in a binary system - buffets its poles.
But here they seem to have discovered a 'rogue' dark star with no solar companion to 'light it up'... Unless, like our system's, perhaps, the companion star just hasn't been detected yet.
Comment: We previously ran this with the title 'Mysterious gigantic rogue planet...'
But in fact, when this was first observed in 2016, it was categorized as a star, albeit a Brown Dwarf 'dark star', which are, generally, companions to suns.
20 light years makes it too far away to be Sol's companion, but it's the behavior of this celestial body that is striking: the above write-up doesn't mention it, but one of the surprise discoveries is that it's producing spectacular auroras!
Combined with its powerful magnetic field, these things are only 'supposed' to happen when the solar wind from its sun - the 'primary' star in a binary system - buffets its poles.
But here they seem to have discovered a 'rogue' dark star with no solar companion to 'light it up'... Unless, like our system's, perhaps, the companion star just hasn't been detected yet.