Curious Stellar Object Confirmed As Rogue Planet

Space





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Artist's conception of a rogue planet floating through space. Christine Pulliam/CfA

Three years ago, a mysterious object was observed drifting alone in interstellar space, 80 light-years from Earth. Much bigger than Jupiter but smaller than most stars, it was called a rogue planet, and now astronomers can confirm that the object is indeed a planet.

PSO J318.5338-22.8603, or PSO J318.5-22 for short, is a large planetary object in the Beta Pictoris moving group. It has a mass of 8.3 times that of Jupiter and a temperature of about 1100 Kelvins. A detailed description of the findings has been published on ArXiv.