Abha Jain is a freelance science writer. She did a masters degree in biology, specializing in neuroscience, from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India, and is almost through with a bachelor's degree in archaeology from the University of Leicester, UK.
The mystery behind hundreds of strange, free-floating planets detected by the James Webb Space Telescope may be a step closer to being solved.
Notably, 80 of these worlds, which are between 0.7 and 13 times the mass of Jupiter, formed pairs of planets that orbit each other.These enigmatic entities have puzzled the astronomy community. For one thing, exactly how JuMBOs — and more generally, FFPs — form is a mystery. One idea is that such planets, paired or otherwise, form when clouds of gas and dust collapse under their own gravity. That's like a scaled-down version of star formation.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over."Stellar flyby is one of the ways to produce ," Dong Lai, a professor of astrophysics at Cornell University and senior author of the new study, told Live Science by email. In fact, following the discovery bonanza last year, another research team calculated that JuMBOs were about one-fifth as likely as other FFPs to be scooped away from their parent stars by a passing star.
They found that JuMBOs were more likely to form if the planets were initially orbiting close to each other or if they were up to 4 times as massive as Jupiter. But even in the highest-probability scenario, the odds of paired planets being kicked out simultaneously was still incredibly low — less than 1%.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Finding Atmospheres on Red Dwarf Planets Will Take Hundreds of Hours of Webb TimeA new paper argues that the JWST needs to spend more time doing 'deep habitability reconnaissance' on exoplanets it's already observed.
Read more »
What are the true colors of images from the James Webb Space Telescope?Rebecca Sohn is a freelance science writer. She writes about a variety of science, health and environmental topics, and is particularly interested in how science impacts people's lives. She has been an intern at CalMatters and STAT, as well as a science fellow at Mashable.
Read more »
Stunning James Webb images show birth and death of massive starsThe James Webb Space Telescope continues to surprise us with stunning pictures, but of what exactly? Astronomer Nienke van der Marel shows with three images how massive stars lead short but explosive lives.
Read more »
James Webb telescope to zoom in on Uranus and Saturn in study of mysterious aurorasRobert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. who specializes in science, space, physics, astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, quantum mechanics and technology. Rob's articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space and ZME Science.
Read more »
James Webb Space Telescope captures the end of planet formationHow much time do planets have to form from a swirling disk of gas and dust around a star? A new study gives scientists a better idea of how our own solar system came to be.
Read more »