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University of Montreal detects an orbitless planet, shows that stars don't have an iron grip (video)
Astronomers have long theorized that there are many planets that have drifted away from their home stars, whether it's a too-loose gravitational pull during the planet's formation or a stellar tug-of-war. We've never had a reasonable chance of locating such a wanderer until today, however. The University of Montreal believes it has spotted CFBDSIR2149, an awkwardly-named gas giant four to seven times larger than Jupiter, floating by itself in the AB Doradus Moving Group of young stars. Scientists made the discovery first by pinpointing their target through infrared images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, and later using the Very Large Telescope to deduce that the object was both too small to be a star as well as hot and young enough (752F and under 120 million years old) to fit the behavior of a planet orphaned early into its existence. With CFBDSIR2149's nature largely locked down, the challenge now is learning just how common such lonely examples can be; when it's much easier to focus on the stars while hunting for planets, finding any more strays could prove to be a daunting task.
Trojan asteroid caught circling Earth, the Greeks deny involvement
Hide your kids, hide your wife, there's an asteroid circling Earth's orbit and we're all gonna... be just fine? Yeah, no need to stock up those '60s fallout shelters folks, this approximately 1,000 feet wide space rock is sitting pretty and safe in one of our Lagrange points. The so-called Trojan asteroid, known as 2010 TK7, was uncovered 50 million miles away by the infrared eyes of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope, and is the first of its kind to be discovered near our humble planet. Typically, these near-Earth objects (NEOs) hide in the sun's glare, but this satellite's unusual circuit around our world helped WISE and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope confirm its existence. The finding has our best and brightest giddy with the hope similar NEOs "could make excellent candidates for future robotic or human exploration." Unfortunately, our new planetoid friend's too-high, too-low path doesn't quite cut the space mission mustard. No matter, 2010 TK7 still gets to call "First!"
