Science

shenmue

(38,506 posts) Thu Apr 21, 2016, 05:25 AM Apr 2016

Lone Planetary-Mass Object Found in Family of Stars

NASA.gov story here

Wowsers!

From article:

In 2011, astronomers announced that our galaxy is likely teeming with free-floating planets. In fact, these lonely worlds, which sit quietly in the darkness of space without any companion planets or even a host sun, might outnumber stars in our Milky Way galaxy. The surprising discovery begged the question: Where did these objects come from? Are they planets that were ejected from solar systems, or are they actually light-weight stars called brown dwarfs that formed alone in space like stars?

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Lone Planetary-Mass Object Found in Family of Stars (Original Post) shenmue Apr 2016 OP

As technology continues to increase our powers of observation, drm604 Apr 2016 #1

That seems like what you would expect. bemildred Apr 2016 #2

drm604

(16,230 posts)

1. As technology continues to increase our powers of observation,

Reply to shenmue (Original post)

Thu Apr 21, 2016, 08:09 AM

Apr 2016

we will continue to find the unexpected. Why wouldn't we?

The universe has turned out to be quite different than what was believed 100 years ago. What will we know 100 years from now?

bemildred

(90,061 posts)

2. That seems like what you would expect.

Reply to shenmue (Original post)

Thu Apr 21, 2016, 08:15 AM

Apr 2016

An inverse distribution, the smaller the size, the more objects about that size, the larger the size, the fewer.

And larger objects, once they attain a certain size, gain gravitational pull, so they sweep out a larger area of space, and grow faster, and are much fewer.

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