Data from the WISE telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey 2 have allowed the identification of an object with planetary mass, with around 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter, that floats freely among a family of young stars, specifically in the association Tw Hydrae. The object in question has been christened WISEA 1147.
WISEA 1147 is only 10 million years old (planets require at least this long to form) and scientists think it is probably a brown dwarf. These cosmic objects are formed like stars but lacking the mass to fuse atoms in their nuclei and shine as such, we call them brown dwarfs.
“With continuous monitoring, it is possible to trace the history of WISEA 1147 to confirm whether it formed in isolation,” explains Adam Schneider of the University of Toledo in Ohio (USA), leader of the study.
What is the origin of these lonely worlds?
These free-floating objects in space can be both planets and brown dwarfs. The difficulty in distinguishing between one and the other is precisely that they are isolated.
This failed star was discovered by sifting through images of the entire sky taken 10 years ago by both the WISE and 2MASS instruments. For both, low-mass objects and brown dwarfs are more likely to be found, because they detect infrared light. The heat signatures gave this brown dwarf away, identifying it as dusty and young , according to NASA, which shows that it is one of the youngest and lowest mass brown dwarfs ever discovered.
The study has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.
