Rogue Planets by the Hundred
Infant Planet Discovered using Maunakea Telescopes
October 25, 2021
MKOs Combine to Observe the Ruins of an Ancient Star Cluster
January 7, 2022
Online viewers of the Subaru Telescope live stream were mesmerised by a cluster of more than a dozen meteors One Scouring through images from CFHT, Subaru and a number of other telescopes worldwide, an international team of astronomers has found the largest collection of free-floating “rogue” planets ever discovered, measuring their brightness, colour and miniscule motions across the sky. These planets are akin to Jupiter but none of them orbit a parent star, but we don’t know if they were formed in isolation, or started life in a solar system only to get “kicked out” through an unwelcome interaction with another planet.
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Discovery image of the planet 2M0437, which lies about 100 times the Earth-Sun distance from its parent star. The image was taken with IRCS on the Subaru Telescope. The much-brighter host star has been mostly removed, and the four "spikes" are artifacts produced by the optics of the telescope. (Credit: University of Hawai`i)
Artist’s rendition of a newly-discovered Jupiter-like exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf, or dead star. This system is evidence that planets can survive their host star’s explosive red giant phase and is the very first confirmed planetary system that serves as an analog to the fate of the sun and Jupiter in our own solar system. Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko