![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/an-artist-s-impression-of-an-invisible-rogue-planet.png\")
<\/p>\nAstronomers have spotted a “rogue planet” hurtling through space entirely alone after being “ejected” by its host star.<\/p>\n
The mystery world was picked up by scientists in China, using telescopes on Earth and the Gaia space telescope, 1.5 million kilometres away from our planet.<\/p>\n
Subtle differences in when the light reached these two points allowed researchers to calculate both the planet’s mass and its distance from Earth.<\/p>\n
The wandering world is roughly twice the size of Earth – though considerably smaller than Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.<\/p>\n
The speed at which the planet is travelling suggests it was forcefully thrown out by one of its original host stars.<\/p>\n
Its location places it approximately 10,000 light-years from Earth, situated towards the centre of our galaxy.<\/p>\n
The research was led by Professor Subo Dong from the National Astronomical Observatories at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n
The findings have been published in the journal Science.<\/p>\n
PICTURED: An artist’s impression of an ‘invisible’ rogue planet<\/p>\n
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UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW<\/p>\n
These free-floating worlds are nearly impossible to detect because they emit no light and have no sun to illuminate them.<\/p>\n
Scientists believe billions of such planets may exist within the Milky Way, though the first was only identified 25 years ago.<\/p>\n
The discovery relied on a technique called gravitational microlensing, which works when a rogue planet passes directly between Earth and a distant background star.<\/p>\n
The star’s light bends around the planet, briefly revealing its presence to observers.<\/p>\n
LATEST SPACE HEADLINES FROM GB NEWS:<\/p>\n
Rogue planets are thought to begin their existence orbiting stars, much like the worlds in our own solar system.<\/p>\n
However, they can be violently expelled from their home systems through gravitational chaos.<\/p>\n
This ejection typically occurs when nearby planets interact with one another or when unstable stellar companions disrupt the orbital balance.<\/p>\n
After the recent find, astronomers are optimistic about uncovering more rogue planets in the years ahead.<\/p>\n
Nasa’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in May 2027, will significantly boost detection capabilities.<\/p>\n
The new instrument will offer a field of view at least 100 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been operational since 1990.<\/p>\n
Over its lifetime, the Roman telescope could potentially measure light from a billion galaxies.<\/p>\n
This vastly expanded observational power should help astronomers identify and study many more of these elusive wandering worlds that drift through the darkness between stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers have spotted a “rogue planet” hurtling through space entirely alone after being “ejected” by its host star.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,2331,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-349767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-sgg","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}