Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Planet gets lost in space

Photo ©public-domain-image.com

In a rare event, a planet pulled free from its mother star and sailed off alone into empty space. Named Object CFBDSIR 2149, the lonely planet is a dull star with no shine to talk of. It is estimated to be between 50 to 120 million years with a sizzling temperature of around 400 degrees celcius.
Although rare, it’s not for the first time that such an event occurred in deep space, but this one was the closest one spotted from earth at over 100 light years away. The planet was seen to be gravitating towards a cluster of 30 stars of the same age and composition that floated together in space called the AB Doradus Moving Group.
It was spotted through an infrared camera at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and a large telescope in Chile ranked as the sixth largest in the world. Astronomers consider this discovery vital since it helped them comprehend how planets separate from planetary systems.

                                                                                                  (Based on Ndtv.com)

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