Artistic interpretation of gravitational microlensing, where a wandering planet was used.
Scientists from the Observatory of the University of Warsaw, Ohio State University and the University of Warwick found evidence that wandering Jupiter is much smaller than previous studies have claimed.
In the new article, the authors describe the analysis of data collected in an optical gravitational lensing experiment, where light curves of approximately 50 million stars from 2010–2015 were considered.
Wandering planets became interested in 2011. Then the researchers said that as the stars of the main sequence there are about twice as many. New data refute this opinion.
Detect wandering planets is extremely difficult, because they do not emit their own light. That is, you have to peer into a dark space, where nothing makes itself known. When they move past a light beam sent by a distant star, lensing can occur (the light of an overlapped star is increased by the gravity of the planet). This is an important phenomenon, as it allows to determine the size of the planet. Scientists have watched millions of stars from 2617 high-quality lensing events. And this is more than covered in the previous one (474 events).
Today's results show that wandering Jupiters are rare. In addition, about 25% are gas giants, and 75% are rocky or icy.
The gravity of the wandering planets can deviate and focus light from a distant star. Because of the distortion, the star depicted appears brighter
As a result, orphans will be smaller, because they are initially connected by a powerful gravitational force to the star system. But objects like the Earth can be pushed out due to outside interference.
