Astronomers operating the network of 27 Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescopes have made the first radio telescope detection of an object with planetary mass beyond our Solar System. The object, with a mass 12.7 times greater than that of Jupiter, has a surprisingly powerful magnetic field and yet it is a solitary body that travels through space without the company of a parent star.
“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 Melodie Kao, a postdoctoral scientist at the Arizona State University cited by the Very Large Array observatory website.
There Is an Absolutely Gigantic Rogue Planet Wandering Our Galactic Neighbourhood https://t.co/9rU2B8kFVh
— ScienceAlert (@ScienceAlert) August 3, 2018
Brown dwarfs are objects too massive to be considered planets, but not enough to withstand the nuclear fusion of hydrogen in their nuclei, the process that drives the stars. Initially, it was believed that they did not emit radio waves, but the discovery in 2001 by the VLA of a radio flash in one of these stars revealed strong magnetic activity .
On Earth, auroras are generated by solar winds, which interact with the charged particles in our ionosphere. These charged particles travel along the lines of the planet’s magnetic field toward the poles, where they manifest as beautiful lights in the sky and produce strong radio wave emissions.
Credit: Caltech/Chuck Carter; NRAO/AUI/NSF
But, as far as we known, brown dwarfs are not near the stellar winds, which makes their auroras a mystery for astrophysicists.
The VLA astronomers believe that the processes of this new object, called SIMP J01365663 + 0933473, could help to obtain more information about it, expressed in the research published by The Astrophysical Journal.
Discovered amongst a group of very young stars, the object is about 200 million years old, “no more than a baby” in cosmic terms, says the article.
“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 is and incredible fin.
