What if one drifted past Earth?
outnumber star-orbiting worlds in the Milky Way, according to a pair of studies set to be published in. Sans a sun, these rogues waywardly drift through the cosmos without end, and may number in the trillions.
"Microlensing is the only way we can find objects like low-mass free-floating planets and even primordial black holes," explained lead author of one of the studies Takahiro Sumi, an astronomer at Osaka University, in the statement. "We found that Earth-size rogues are more common than more massive ones," Sumi explained. "The difference in star-bound and free-floating planets' average masses holds a key to understanding planetary formation mechanisms."
"Roman will be sensitive to even lower-mass rogue planets since it will observe from space," said Osaka University astronomer Naoki Koshimoto, co-author of one of the studies, in the statement.
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