The powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was recently able to detect odd and inexplicable rogue planets floating in pairs across the universe. A new study could now shed light on such mysterious planets.
Rogue Planets and FFPs
The cosmos is filled with several rogue planets, which are planets that do not have a parent star. Such planets are FFPs (free-floating planets), which include pairs of worlds that are the size of Juupiter and that orbit one another. Such a mystery has left scientists puzzled.
FFPs were generally discovered by astronomers over two decades ago with the help of the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. Ever since, hundreds of rogue planets have been spotted by observers, with the biggest catch ever seen last year.
The JWST was able to pick up a massive haul last year that consists of over 500 FFPs in the Orion Nebula's trapezoid-shaped expanse. This area is also known to be a hotspot of stellar births. There were notably 90 of these worlds, which have the mass of 0.7 to 13 times Jupiter's mass, that formed planet pairs. Such planets orbited one another.
Unraveling the Mystery of the Rogue Planets
The astronomy community has been puzzled by such entities. For one, the formation of JuMBOS (Jupiter-mass binary objects) and FFPs, more generally, is still a mystery.
One thought is that these kinds of planets, whether they are paired or not, form when clouds of dust and gas collapse within their gravity. This is similar to a scaled-down version of how stars form.
Another possibility is that these planets are pulled from their parent planetary systems, which are closely packed, by a notably large object's gravitational force.
Senior author Dong Lai, who is also an astrophysics professor from Cornell University, shares that one way to produce FFPs is through stellar flyby. Moreover, following the bonanza's discovery last year, a different research team was able to find that the JuMBOs were roughly one-fifth as likely as other kinds of FFPs to be scooped by a passing star from their parent star.
To know more about the formation of JuMBOs and FFPs, Lai, along with student Fangyuan Yu from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, made tens of thousands of simulations of a planetary system with a duo of JuMBOs that orbit a star that is similar to the Sun. For each simulation, a second star of similar size was allowed to swoop by. The researchers then gauged the simulation fractions wherein both planets were kicked out from their own orbit. For all simulations, both Yu and Lai adjusted many parameters, including the mass of the planets.
The researchers discovered that JuMBOs had a higher likelihood of forming if the planets initially had a close orbit with one another or if their mass was up to four times that of Jupiter. However, even in the situation with the highest probability, the chances of planetary pairs getting kicked out at the same time was remarkably low (less than 1%).
Constrastingly, it was hundreds of times more likely for single planets to be kicked out when a stellar flyby took place. This could create lone FFPs. Simulations also revealed that lone survivors were shaken quite badly, as their circular paths turned into trajectories with elliptical shapes.
Such findings are yet to undergo peer-review and are currently available in a preprint server.
The researchers think that their study supports the cloud-collapse model for explaining the formation of JuMBOs. For any case, Lai thinks that the simulations are part of a physics experiment that could help further telescope observations.
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