According to a new study, rogue planets drifting through space could not only outnumber stars, but could serve as home to lien life despite the fact that they are traveling aimlessly in the icy coldness of interstellar space. So, as the search for extraterrestrial life begins its second 50 years, alien hunters may have far more places to look than they ever could have imagined just a few years ago.
To start with, its is very easy for a planet to get thrown out of its parent solar system, especially if there is a large, Jupiter-like planet around several smaller, Earth-sized worlds. To put it simply, one close brush with a giant planet can gravitationally impact the smaller one so much that it could be hurled into space, which seems to be the case for these planets that were recently the focus of study by a joint Japanese-New Zealand team of researchers. Result: in the small area of sky examined, 10 Jupiter-sized planets were detected at a distance of just 10,000 to 20,000 light years away. Now, if this tiny slice of sky and its planets is any indication, there could be hundreds of billions of such planets floating around space without a parent star.
Now, in an even more spectacular assertion, they could also be the abode of life, too.
Finnish planetary scientist Heikki Vanhamaki has stated that even an Earth-sized planet floating freely through space could support life. How? If the planet has a thick atmosphere and geological activity at the same timer, the atmosphere could serve as a blanket to keep the planet's surface warm enough to support life. As for the giant Jupiter-like gas planets, like Jupiter, they could have Moons being heated by tidal forces from their parent planet. Result: warm moons that could possibly support life.
Traditionally, planet hunters have focused on stars only, looking for a Doppler Shift or for a dip in brightness caused by a planetary transit. A third, far less successful method (at least so far) is to look for radio waves given off by a planet's aurora. When it comes to orphan planets without a star, the radio wave method is about the only successful way to find them.
So, what are the odds of having success?
According to Vanhamaki, the odds are long with current technology but, as with anything in science, nothing should be deemed impossible as many factors go into determining the strength of a planet's magnetic field, namely its size, rotation speed, and moons' sizes, and thus its chances to produce aurora. Simply put, the bigger the planet is, the faster it spins, and the larger its moons, the better chance it will produce aurora that can be detected with current radio telescopes.
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