Scientists Scan Mysterious Planet as It Drifts Through Space

Not every large object in space forms part of a solar system. There are some big objects that exist in isolation in space, without either being a star or orbiting one. One of these, SIMP 0136, wanders aimlessly in the Milky Way, about 20 light years away from Earth. It has a mass about 13 times that of Jupiter, and is thought to have the structure and chemical composition of a giant gas planet, though its true characteristics have not yet been determined. Such untethered objects are typically classified either as “free-floating planets,” which form inside a star system, but are thrown out by the gravitational force of another planet, or as “brown dwarfs,” which form like stars in dense molecular clouds of gas and dust, but lack the mass to undergo stable nuclear fusion like a typical star (for this reason, brown dwarfs are sometimes also known as “failed stars”). It is unclear yet whether SIMP 0136 belongs to either of these categories. To try to find out more about SIMP 0136’s chara ... Read full article.