Over 170 giant rogue planets spotted floating through space by astronomers

Outer space has always been a mystery for us earthlings since it is a vast region of unknown objects and stars, most of which are undiscovered by the human race. A new discovery by a bunch of astronomers brings us closer to gaining more knowledge about space.

As many as 170 giant rogue planets have been spotted floating aimlessly across space by astronomers in a remarkable discovery. Researchers from the European Southern Observatory identified these planets first by compiling thousands of images collected of these bodies.

As per the astronomers and researchers involved in the discovery, these giant planets are in a star-forming region relatively close to our Sun in the southern constellations of Upper Scorpius and Ophiuchus. It is assumed that billions of such planets float around the Milky Way.

The detection of 170 such rogue planets marks the largest number of these planets being discovered to date. “We did not know how many to expect and are excited to have found so many,” says study first author Dr. Nuria Miret-Roig of Bordeaux University, in a media statement.

Dr Miret-Roig further explains, “We measured the tiny motions, the colors, and luminosities of tens of millions of sources in a large area of the sky.” The astronomer added, “These measurements allowed us to securely identify the faintest objects in this region, the rogue planets.”

The astronomers working on this project discovered these rogue planets using a series of telescopes, located both on Earth and in space, including the European Space Agency's Very Large Telescope and the Gaia Satellite.

The leader of the project, Hervé Bouy, said, “We used tens of thousands of wide-field images from ESO facilities, corresponding to hundreds of hours of observations, and literally tens of terabytes of data.” The scientists working on this discovery said that this is a big step towards exploring the rest of the universe.