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October 12, 2013 06:00 am GMT

Lonely Alien Planet Discovered Without a Parent Star

Planet1

Astronomers have discovered a lonely planet that's floating by itself in deep space without orbiting a star.

The powerful Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) telescope at the summit of Maui's Haleakala volcano in Hawaii first detected the solitary alien world through a faint heat signature 80 light-years from Earth while it was searching for brown dwarfs.

Dubbed PSO J318.5-22, the exoplanet is relatively young at 12 million years old, researchers say. With a mass about six times that of Jupiter, the planet resembles gas giants that orbit young stars, follow-up observations with other telescopes showed. But the one thing it appears to be missing is a parent star Read more...

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Original Link: http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/Jcr3wQIJXmw/

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