Nomad planets 🪐 or rogue planets are planets that have somehow escaped (perhaps even never have been bound) the gravitational tug of a star. . It is most likely these stars may have formed at the periphery of their host solar system and then slipped away over time. . These rogue planets are hard to detect since they do not create any light of their own. However, it is possible that our Milky Way galaxy 🌌 may have billions of these planets hurtling through interstellar space. . One of the key questions astrophysicists and astronomers would seek to answer is how well these planets could retain heat. Modeling experiments indicate that an Earth-sized planet (if ejected early) could retain significant amounts of hydrogen in its atmosphere not stripped away by solar UV radiation ⚡️that could maintain an overall average temperature greater than the freezing point of water 💧 from the heat of its planetary core. . The nearby OTS 44 system discovered in 1998 may in fact be a rogue planet surrounded by a circumstellar disk of dust, rock, and ice 🧊 particles (bottom). . Credit: NASA / public domain and NASA/JPL-Caltech / public domain. . #astronomy #astronomer #astrophysics #astrophysicist #astronomers #rogueplanet #solarsystem #interstellar https://www.instagram.com/p/B7_VpYiJ-Wt/?igshid=1ubk05lwx9yjn
