Icy Earth-mass Rogue Planet

  • Released Wednesday, July 19, 2023
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This artist’s concept shows an ice-encrusted, Earth-mass rogue planet drifting through space alone.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

This artist’s concept shows an ice-encrusted, Earth-mass rogue planet drifting through space alone.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

New research by scientists from NASA and Japan’s Osaka University suggests that rogue planets – worlds that drift through space untethered to a star – far outnumber planets that orbit stars. The results imply that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch by May 2027, could find a staggering 400 Earth-mass rogue worlds. Indeed, this new study has already identified one such candidate.

For More Information

See https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/new-study-reveals-nasas-roman-could-find-400-earth-mass-rogue-planets/

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.
This page was last updated on Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 8:19 AM EST.

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