Huge, glowing 'rogue' planet spotted 'drifting' through space

A huge “rogue” planet with an unexplained “glow” lurks beyond our solar system, claim scientists.

The monstrously large world is twelve times bigger than Jupiter and the first object of its kind to be spotted using a radio telescope, according to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

They’re dubbing it “rogue” because it’s mysteriously “drifting” through space without any kind of orbit around a parent star.

More baffling still is its mass and powerful magnetic field that’s over 200 times stronger than Jupiter’s.

Picking apart its secrets could lead to the discovery of more alien worlds, claim scientists.

“This object is right at the boundary between a planet and a brown dwarf, or ‘failed star’ and is giving us some surprises that can potentially help us understand magnetic processes on both stars and planets,” said Dr. Melodie Kao, an astronomer at Arizona State University.

Brown dwarves have long stumped scientists: they’re too huge to be considered planets and not big enough to be considered stars.

They also have strong auroras – similar to the stunning “Northern Lights” on Earth – like those seen in our own solar system’s giant planets Jupiter and Saturn.

The auroras on our planet are caused by its magnetic field interacting with the solar wind (the continuous flow of charged particles from the sun’s upper atmosphere, known as the corona, that permeates the solar system).

Kao’s team used an advanced radio telescope located in New Mexico to make the discovery. They say the new world is 200 million years old and 20 light-years from Earth.

It also boasts scorching surface temperatures of around 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, the Sun’s surface temperature is about 9,900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Though it was first detected in 2016, scientists initially identified it as one of five recently discovered brown dwarfs.

That theory was scrapped, however, after they dug through more data to better pinpoint its age.

They now believe it’s a much younger object and its mass is, therefore, smaller than originally thought – meaning it could theoretically be classified as a planet in its own right.

Such a strong magnetic field “presents huge challenges to our understanding of the dynamo mechanism that produces the magnetic fields in brown dwarfs and exoplanets and helps drive the auroras we see,” said Gregg Hallinan, of Caltech.

He continued: “Detecting SIMP J01365663+0933473 with the VLA through its auroral radio emission also means that we may have a new way of detecting exoplanets, including the elusive rogue ones not orbiting a parent star.”

“This particular object is exciting because studying its magnetic dynamo mechanisms can give us new insights on how the same type of mechanisms can operate in extrasolar planets — planets beyond our solar system,” added Kao.

“We think these mechanisms can work not only in brown dwarfs but also in both gas giant and terrestrial planets.”

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