Astronomers have confirmed for the first time with direct evidence that a lone, starless world is actually drifting through the Milky Way.
Though scientists have documented a dozen of these so-called “rogue planets” in the past decade, this one isn’t merely an educated guess based on a handful of clues. By catching the same brief cosmic alignment from Earth and space, researchers were able to directly measure the celestial object’s mass.
In doing so, they found this orphan is within the same weight class as Saturn, strengthening the case that the galaxy teems with castaway exoplanets — born within solar systems but chucked out later into the abyss, said Subo Dong, a professor of astronomy at Peking University in Beijing.
The finding, published in the journal Science, suggests at least some so-called “rogue planets” form like regular planets before their violent expulsion.
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