Rogue Planet Discovered: We Need To Name This Orphan

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This artist’s impression shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9. This is the closest such object to the Solar System. It does not orbit a star. Click to enlarge this image. ESO/L. Calçada/P. Delorme/Nick Risinger /R. Saito/VVV Consortium

The first thing we need to do is name this orphan.  After all CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 just doesn’t cut it.  Can you imagine calling this planet to dinner? By the time you got the name out everything would be cold.  The fact is I’m fascinated by comets, meteors, and orphan planets.  Just the thought of a planet without a star, that could actually sustain life, thrills me no end, but hey, we need to show the proper respect and give it a real name.

While you’re thinking about that here’s the story from National Geographic:

A search for would-be stars called brown dwarfs has yielded something even more elusive: a potential orphan planet.  Some four to seven times the mass of Jupiter, the wandering planet orbits no star, a team of French and Canadian astronomers reported this week.

Scientists believe such objects—also called homeless, free-floating, or rogue planets—can form in one of two ways. Either they’re ejected from star systems, or they form independently.

About a dozen such untethered orbs were identified more than a decade ago in the Orion Nebula. Since then the pool of candidates has grown to several dozen.

The latest discovery is the first to be found outside a star-forming region, said Étienne Artigau, an astronomer at the Université de Montréal and a co-author of the study, published Wednesday by the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Compared with other potential homeless planets, the new candidate is also older, colder, and much closer to Earth—approximately 130 light-years away, he said.

Called CFBDSIR2149, the suspected orphan planet appears to reside in a group of young stars, though it isn’t gravitationally linked to any of them. This affiliation with the so-called AB Doradus Moving Group helped scientists estimate the planet’s age: 50 to 120 million years old.

In Search of Brown Dwarfs

The object’s infrared signature was detected when the team—led by Philippe Delorme of France’s Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de l’Observatoire de Grenoble—was searching for brown dwarfs several years ago. Brown dwarfs, while too massive to be considered planets, are sometimes dubbed “failed stars,” because they lack the bulk to initiate nuclear reactions in their core.

The unusual infrared readings suggested that this particular body had a low mass, more like a gas giant planet than a brown dwarf. The team also looked to see if the object was gravitationally bound to anything else, Artigau said.

“There’s a small range where a parent star could be,” he noted, adding that in astronomical terms, “small” can mean more than a hundred times the distance of Pluto from the sun. “We checked for a nearby star, which would be pretty bright, and found nothing.”

The absence of bright light from a nearby star also means less glare, and therefore better conditions for studying the new world more closely. And more study is exactly what’s needed to confirm that it’s an orphan planet.

If you have any name ideas please let us know in the comments section.

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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3 years ago

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Carol Maietta
11 years ago

Hmmm…brown dwarf? How about Buckwheat…but now I’m dating myself

Bill Formby
Reply to  Carol Maietta
11 years ago

OK but you have to learn to say it right. It s bucwhee. He never gets the “K” or the “T” out. Welcome to da South 🙂

Reply to  Bill Formby
11 years ago

LOL…I watched it in the north so I heard Buckwheat.
Hey how about we suggest the name Beetlejuice who is the 4’3″ African America entertainer who frequents the Howard Stern show?

Parker Lee
11 years ago

Call it Dave! LOL.

AnonymousNot
11 years ago

How about calling it “Sauron” after Tolkien’s trilogy references?

lincoln82
11 years ago

How about “Syanmar?” It has no significance beyond the fact that it’s unusual. Anyway there’s my contribution.

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