An artist's rendition of planet CFBDSIR2149. The planet's faint glow looks blue through an infrared telescope. In visible light the cold planet would actually appear red.
It's cold and young and massive. And they call it the wanderer. Astronomers recently discovered a new planet
, named CFBDSIR2149, that is relatively close to our solar system. It is also the first convincing evidence of an accepted but yet unsubstantiated theory of roaming planets. Astronomers have theorized for the last decade about the presence of wandering planets that do not orbit stars, and they've found a number of objects that could potentially fit the bill. But without the ability to accurately date these objects, scientists couldn't positively identify them as planets. They could just as easily have been failed stars called brown dwarfs. Luckily for astronomers, CFBDSIR2149 has certain qualities that made identification possible. The wandering planet acts as a groupie to ...
