NASA spots free-floating brown dwarf in deep space

A newly discovered free-floating planetary mass could offer NASA researchers new clues on how lonely planets form in the galaxy.

The object, dubbed WISEA 1147, was discovered using information from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). The planetary-mass sits within a young star family, and is five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, according to a statement released by NASA Wednesday. 

In 2011, NASA researchers announced our galaxy was likely full of free-floating worlds, seemingly unbound by any orbit, and miles from their supposed host stars.

NASA scientists theorized that the planets may have been ejected from solar systems or were actually brown dwarfs or stars with masses too low to burn nuclear fuel and ignite as a star.

Researchers believe WISEA 1147 is a brown dwarf, because it is located within a group of stars and is only 10-million-years-old, which is young by planetary standards.

“Planets require at least 10 million years to form, and probably longer to get themselves kicked out of a star system, WISEA 1147 is likely a brown dwarf,” NASA said in a statement.

Free-floating planets and brown dwarfs are easier to study than planets because they are not outshone by a host star like the Sun. NASA said researchers hope to be able to continue studying free-floating planetary masses in order to understand weather patterns and what the objects are comprised of.

"We are at the beginning of what will become a hot field – trying to determine the nature of the free-floating population and how many are planets versus brown dwarfs," Davy Kirkpatrick of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center said in a statement.

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