Questions tagged [rogue-planet]
Questions about planets that do not orbit around a star. These planets travel through space.
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Probability of exoplanets getting ejected by supernova
The large population of rogue planetary mass objects in our galaxy is often stated to have stemmed from gravitational ejection from a young system of from the collapse of small gas clouds. But I've ...
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How can planets ionize in the distant future in 10^100 years if proton decay doesn't happen?
So imagine there is a very massive planet with 20 times the mass of Earth made of mostly iron and silicon and has 2 times the radius of Earth so has a high escape velocity and this object exists ...
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If a rogue planet entered near Jupiter planet could it tear the planet apart?
Theoretically, there could be a rogue planet made of iron or even osmium in large quantities, which can make it have 25 Earth masses within the volume of 1 Earth Radii. So if this object came near ...
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How would we tell the difference between low mass objects that formed by direct collapse or in an accretion disk?
In this question about rogue planet/sub brown detection there are a couple of comments about classification of non-stellar, low mass, free floating objects. Part of one of the answers is -
Some "...
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"And in some cases, a (free floating) planet (FFP) can form on its own outside of any solar system." Cool! But what are those cases?
The April 2, 2023 Inverse article 9 Years Ago, Astronomers Found Two Rogue Planets — But They Didn’t Realize It Until Now says:
Planets are typically part of a planetary system and are ...
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What is the chance that the Sun will not rise tomorrow?
What is the most likely natural astrophysical mechanism for the "Sun not rising tomorrow", consistent with our scientific knowledge today?
Background
The "sunrise problem - What is the ...
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Is there likely any star systems in the very middle of the largest voids?
I imagine this question is as old Hubble's red shift measurements publication. Has there been enough time for any solar system to make it right to the middle of a void? Any Goldilocks scenarios there? ...
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How much light would be received on a rogue planet close to the galactic center?
I was wondering if anyone has ever attempted to estimate how much solar radiation would be received on a rogue planet floating in between star systems close to the center of the milky way, compared to ...
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Would a nearby "Orphan planet" be detectable?
I understand that there may be large numbers of "orphan" planets not circling any star.
If there were such a planet, say the size of Jupiter, in the vicinity of the Sun, about how close ...
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Are there any probabilistic models for the likelihood of finding a rogue planet closer to us than Proxima Centauri?
There are some articles that claim there could be more rogue planets than stars in our galaxy such as this one.
Now if this were true one might expect that there is a rogue planet closer to the earth ...
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Astrophysics Ph.D. thesis on intergalactic rogue planets and their habitability; how active is this field of research?
Is the habitability of intergalactic rogue planets something that has been studied a lot?
The reason that I'm asking is that I've just started my PhD program last year and I'm wondering/concerned if ...
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Are planets far from their parent star more likely or less likely to have an atmosphere?
Are non-gaseous planets (e.g. super-Earths) that are either rogue or very far from their parent star(s) less likely or more likely to have a significant atmosphere?
On one hand planets closer to their ...
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What can be the minimum time for a somewhat stable twin star orbit to collapse on being affected by a third body?
The third 'invading' celestial body passing by or crashing into one of the stars could be a possible reason for the orbit collapse. Something that throws the stars* off-course speeding up their death ...
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Is it likely there are more rogue planets than brown dwarfs, and that we just can't see them because they're too dim?
Among celestial bodies revolving around the galactic center directly, it seems the bodies of lowest mass (brown and red dwarfs) are the most abundant. However, when it comes to even less massive Y-...
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Could rogue planets harbor life?
On July 21 at 10 am, Seti Talks will be discussing the topic of "Could Rogue Planets Harbor Life". Supposedly there are 50 billion such planets in the Milky Way. I would think that the ...
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Couldn't the orbits of ETNOs have been altered by a flying-by rogue planet as well?
Regarding the Extreme trans-Neptunian objects or ETNOs, whose orbits some believe are elongated by a far away planet, could their orbits have been elongated by a rogue planet as well? Is it possible ...
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Are Brown and Sub-Brown Dwarfs secretly more common than stars?
I recently heard that Red Dwarfs are the most common type of star, and low-mass Red Dwarfs are the most common type of Red Dwarf. This seems to imply a generic trend that the lower the mass, the more ...
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If the Sun disappeared, could some planets form a new orbital system?
If the sun were to suddenly disappear, the planets would continue to travel tangentially to their former orbits. (This I know from this answer to a somewhat related question here.)
In such a scenario, ...
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Scholarly work on the gravitational disruption of a rocky planet by a close pass with another planet?
note: While the apparently abandoned question Effects of a rogue planet passing between the Earth and the Moon? (inspired by Thundarr the Barbarian) asks for speculation and was answered with it, this ...
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Hydrogen Frost Line? Where, if anywhere, is it cold enough for Oort Cloud objects or rogue planets to have solid hydrogen on their surfaces?
I like the idea of Oort Cloud objects all being crusted with a thin layer of hydrogen snow, though what little information I've managed to find on the topic seems to imply that that is unlikely, ...
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When was the concept of rogue planets first theorized?
So after watching the Kurzgesagt video about life on rogue planets I became fascinated by the concept. I did some digging, and the earliest reference to the concept I could find was Philip Wylie's ...
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If the hypothetical planet beyond the Kuiper belt exists, is it likely there are even more planets farther outside?
Since 2016 there are hints that a (probably) ice giant planet may exist far beyond the Kuiper belt. There are speculations that it may be a rogue planet captured by the Sun. But is it likely that ...
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Would it be possible for life found on moon of rogue planet
I have heard that there are at least three Basic requirement for life exist in the universe, they are:
Source of Energy
Complex chemistry (including solvent/medium for chemical reaction)
Protection ...
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Is it possible that Venus was once a rogue planet? [closed]
As Venus rotates in clockwise direction, while other planets rotate in anti clockwise direction:
Is it possible that Venus was once a rogue planet?
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How well would the Moon protect the Earth from an Asteroid?
Would the Earth fare better if the Moon blocked the meteor, comet, rogue planet, or otherwise rather than a direct impact? At what point would the Moon's debris would be an extinction event?
The ...
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What would happen to the atmosphere of a rogue jovian planet?
Let's say we have a gas giant composed primarily of hydrogen and hydrogen-rich molecules that is ejected from its star system.
As this planet embarks on its potentially infinite journey out into the ...
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What would you find within a void?
I'm aware that voids are relatively empty regions of the universe, but just how empty can they be? Wikipedia states that voids have 'few or no' galaxies, but I can't find much else.
To make my ...
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What natural mechanisms could lead to the unlikely case of the same rogue asteroid or planet passing through our solar system twice?
I find he following answer to the question What's the soonest Oumuamua could return? unsatisfying and oversimplifying and the last five words "Therefore it will never return." unsupported at a minimum....
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Can rogue/nomad planets and other starless planetary bodies orbit each other in a stable system?
Nomad planets (also called planemos or rogues planets) which drift in space without a star or substellar object to orbit. The majority of such planets we have discovered are gas planets with thick ...
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Can two planets in an empty universe meet/be pulled together?
For this question assume that the entire universe is completely empty. The universe is not expanding or contracting, it is completely motionless since time immemorial and has never moved before.
Only ...
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Could a rocky rogue planet get trapped in the orbit between Earth and Mars?
I know it's extremely unlikely a rogue planet passing by there, and I know the size of rocky planets can vary a lot (IIRC there is a rocky planet 5 times the size of Earth) but in any hypothetical ...
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Detecting a Rogue Planet from Earth
This is for a novel.
A rogue planet, is, by a one-in-a-zillion freak chance, on its way to collide with Earth. It has been drifting in interstellar space since its original formation (billions of ...
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Effects of a rogue planet passing between the Earth and the Moon?
The plot of Thundarr the Barbarian got me thinking about the science behind
the passage of a runaway planet between the Earth and the Moon
and its effect on the Earth and Moon themselves, as well ...
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Are rogue planets ever born in isolation?
I'm using the term "rogue planet" here loosely to mean anything of planet-level mass that is not orbiting around a star. Popular discussions of these objects always describe them as forming around a ...
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Is it likely that intergalactic stars would still retain their planets?
Given that we've discovered hundreds of intergalactic stars (IGs), and that most stars have planets, what do we know about the likelihood of IGs retaining their planets after being ejected from their ...
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Life in sufficiently hot rogue planets [closed]
The Milky Way has a bright center we can't see directly because of space dust. Are there's regions of the galaxy free of that dust that could receive all that light and radiation, right? Would it be ...
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Studies on planets without parent star
I am interested in studies and/or publications about planets that wander in space and are not orbiting around a star or its remnants. These dark and frozen worlds should've got ripped away from their ...
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What is the closest heavenly body to our solar system
What is currently the closest known heavenly body, brown dwarf, rogue planet or other to our solar system? At one time it was Alpha Centauri.
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Can a planet with a hydrogen atmosphere have a water ocean with dissolved oxygen? [closed]
Reading up on rogue planets (i. e. planets not orbiting a star), it turns out that a rogue Super-Earth with a sufficiently dense hydrogen atmosphere could retain its internal heat and have oceans/...
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How can we tell the age of a rogue planet?
Is it possible to find out how old is a planet, especially a rogue planet? I know that people measured the radioactive decays to determine Earth's age with some amazing accuracy, but what about ...
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Has the existence of earth-sized rogue planets been confirmed?
The list of known rogue planets provided by Wikipedia is fairly short. Some are "candidates"; others "may be" red dwarfs. The two confirmed rogue planets are several times the size of Jupiter.
I ...
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Is it possible that a star system ejects an object out of the galaxy?
I know it is possible that a star system ejects a planet out of the star system and the planets becomes rogue planets and orbit around the galaxy. Is it also possible that a planet gains enough speed ...
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Survival on a rogue planet [closed]
Are there any planets not orbiting a celestial body which can support life despite the temperature? Also what is the absolute minimum temperature that life can survive in?
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Can a rogue planet neither orbit around a star nor a galaxy?
As we know, rogue planets don't orbit around a star, how about galaxy? Can a rouge planet not orbit around a galaxy?
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Is there any hard evidence that rogue planets exist?
A rogue planet (or a rogue anything, for that matter: a celestial body other than a star) is something that's drifting through space without being attached by gravity to any star. They're just out ...
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When the sun explodes, will some of the planets in the Solar System survive and become rogue planets?
Say if a large enough star, that has a number of planets, were to explode in a supernova:
Would any of the planets survive?
Would they become rogue planets?
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How do rogue planets orbit around stars in other planetary systems?
I got some interesting answers for What would happen if a rogue planet hit one of the planets in our Solar System?
But I have seen some documentaries that state that rogue planets from other ...
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What would happen if a rogue planet hit one of the planets in our Solar System?
As there are millions of rogue planets in the Milky Way, what would happen if one hit a planet in the Solar System.
For example, if the rogue planet hit Pluto, would Pluto fall in to the Sun due to ...
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Could Pluto and Charon have extra-Solar origin?
Pluto and Charon seem to have surprisingly young surfaces, considering that resurfacing events were expected to be rare for them.
Could the explanation be that they actually are young? Formed later ...
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Configuration required to tidally heat Earth-like rogue planet
Could it be possible for Earth-like rogue planet to maintain large bodies of liquid water on the surface without a sun by relying mostly on tidal forces of a moon (or multiple moons).
How big/far/fast ...
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