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Massey University Astrophysicist Ian Bond - Source: ONE News
New Zealand scientists have helped discover a collection of Jupiter-sized free-floating planets that do not orbit stars, but instead drift through space.
The discovery of the exoplanets differs from those observed in the last 15 years, as these lonely planets are not gravitationally bound to host stars - as the planets in our solar system are.
The research is published today in the journal Nature.
The planets were discovered using gravitational microlensing, which enables scientists to study objects that emit little or no light.
The scientists, with support from researchers at the University of Auckland, Massey University, Victoria University, the University of Canterbury and Mt. John Observatory, estimate that there are nearly twice as many lonely planets as main-sequence stars.
The lonely planets are at least 10 astronomical units from a star. One astronomical unit is the distance from the Sun to the Earth.
The scientists suggest the planets may have formed in dense gas clouds around newly formed stars and were then scattered into unbound or very distant orbits.
Researchers from Japan and the United States were also involved in the discovery.
The group is part of the study called Moa, or microlensing
observations in astrophysics, which uses a microlensing telescope
at Mt John Observatory at Lake Tekapo.
Dr Ian Bond, co-author of the Nature paper and Senior Lecturer at
the, Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences at Massey
University said MOA led the discovery of the first microlensing
planet in 2004, based on observations take in 2003.
Since then,11 more microlensing planet discoveries have been published with several more undergoing analysis, he said.
The planets found by microlensing are expected to be cold, he said.
