{"id":797762,"date":"2025-08-14T06:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=797762"},"modified":"2025-08-14T06:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:02:10","slug":"giant-free-floating-planets-might-have-planets-of-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=797762","title":{"rendered":"Giant free-floating planets might have planets of their own"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Not All Planets Orbit Stars ...\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a9m59eM80lc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><em>New research has found that rogue planets \u2013 planets that don\u2019t orbit stars \u2013 could have planets of their own. Watch this video for more details.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Free-floating planets, or rogue planets,<\/strong> are planets that drift in space, not orbiting any star. The ones discovered so far are gas giants, like Jupiter or Saturn.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Could they have their own planets orbiting them?<\/strong> A new study using the James Webb Space Telescope suggests they could indeed have their own planetary systems.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Webb\u2019s observations found evidence for disks of warm dust<\/strong> around some rogue planets. These are similar to the disks of dust and gas around stars that planets are born in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Could free-floating planets have planets of their own?<\/h3>\n<p>Planetary systems are families of planets that orbit stars, like the planets in our own planetary (or solar) system. But there might be another kind of planetary system that we haven\u2019t seen before. An international team of researchers, led by the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said on July 31, 2025, that giant free-floating planets \u2013 or rogue planets \u2013 could have their own miniature planetary systems. The researchers used new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope to come to their intriguing conclusions. The other planets would orbit the central giant planet instead of orbiting a star.<\/p>\n<p>The free-floating planets are large, gas-giant type planets, like Jupiter or Saturn. But they are freely wandering in space instead of orbiting any stars. They are dim, with no star to reflect light from. But astronomers have found a growing number of them in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers published their findings in a new preprint paper on arXiv on July 7, 2025.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_394113\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-394113\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-394113\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">View larger. | Artist\u2019s concept of one of the billions of rogue planets thought to float freely through our Milky Way galaxy, not bound to any star. Now, a new study suggests that such free-floating planets could have their own mini planetary systems. Image via NASA\/ Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Planets or moons?<\/h3>\n<p>The findings bring to mind the gas and ice giants in our own solar system. All of them have large families of smaller <em>moons<\/em>. But the new study calls these types of objects planets. So are they moons or planets? Aleks Scholz is the Principal Investigator of the project at the University of St. Andrews. He told Astronomy Now:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We don\u2019t really know yet what to call a smaller body orbiting a free-floating object that is similar in mass to a planet. There are people who would rather call them moons, and that\u2019s fine, too. These systems \u2013 if they exist \u2013 would look more comparable to Jupiter and its moons than to our solar system, but a moon is typically \u2018something that orbits something that orbits something else\u2019, and that\u2019s not the case here. At some point we need to have a debate what to call them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>Observations of 8 giant free-floating planets<\/h3>\n<p>The research team studied eight free-floating planets with the Webb space telescope. The spectroscopic observations with Webb\u2019s instruments, from August to October 2024, were unprecedented in detail and sensitivity. The observations confirmed that all of the planets have masses similar to Jupiter.<\/p>\n<p>But the new observations also revealed something else.<\/p>\n<h3>Warm dust around the planets<\/h3>\n<p>Webb revealed that six of the planets have warm dust in their immediate vicinity. The dust showed up as excess emissions around the planets when viewed in infrared.<\/p>\n<p>Intriguingly, this is reminiscent of the disks of dust and gas around newborn and young stars, called protoplanetary disks. It is in these disks that planets are born. So if free-floating planets can have similar disks around them, could they also have planets?<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from the University of St. Andrews had previously found hints for such disks around free-floating planets before. The results suggested that these disks could last for several million years. That would be enough time for planets to begin to form. Now, Webb has further confirmed the existence of those disks.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_518285\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-518285\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/free-floating-planet-dust-disk-AI.jpg\" alt=\"Glowing yellowish sphere in space, with a disk of dust orbiting around it.\" width=\"800\" height=\"485\" class=\"size-full wp-image-518285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/free-floating-planet-dust-disk-AI.jpg 800w, https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/free-floating-planet-dust-disk-AI-300x182.jpg 300w, https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/free-floating-planet-dust-disk-AI-768x466.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-518285\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">View larger. | AI-generated concept of a free-floating giant planet surrounded by a disk of dust. Image via University of St. Andrews.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Miniature planetary systems?<\/h3>\n<p>The new observations now build on those previous findings. Lead author Belinda Damian at the University of St. Andrews said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>These discoveries show that the building blocks for forming planets can be found even around objects that are barely larger than Jupiter and drifting alone in space. This means that the formation of planetary systems is not exclusive to stars but might also work around lonely starless worlds.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Scholz added:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Taken together, these studies show that objects with masses comparable to those of giant planets have the potential to form their own miniature planetary systems. Those systems could be like the solar system, just scaled down by a factor of 100 or more in mass and size. Whether or not such systems actually exist remains to be shown.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_518224\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-518224\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/Aleks-Scholz-University-of-St-Andrews.jpeg\" alt=\"Smiling man with military-style short hair.\" width=\"500\" height=\"510\" class=\"size-full wp-image-518224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/Aleks-Scholz-University-of-St-Andrews.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2025\/08\/Aleks-Scholz-University-of-St-Andrews-294x300.jpeg 294w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-518224\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aleks Scholz at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland is the Principal Investigator of the new study about free-floating rogue planets. Image via University of St. Andrews.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bottom line: Giant free-floating planets drift in space with no stars. New observations from the Webb space telescope suggest they could have their own planets orbiting them.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Spectroscopy of Free-Floating Planetary-Mass Objects and their disks with JWST<\/p>\n<p>Via University of St. Andrews<\/p>\n<p>Read more: Rogue planets by the trillions in our Milky Way?<\/p>\n<p>Read more: Moons of rogue planets could have water and life<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"cp-load-after-post\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"post-author\">\n<h4>Paul Scott Anderson<\/h4>\n<p>                    View Articles\n                  <\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-tags\">\n<h6 data-udy-fe=\"text_7c58270d\">About the Author:<\/h6>\n<p>Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagan\u2019s Cosmos. He studied English, writing, art and computer\/publication design in high school and college. He later started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was later renamed Planetaria. He also later started the blog Fermi Paradoxica, about the search for life elsewhere in the universe.&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\nWhile interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science and SETI. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis with Universe Today. He has also written for SpaceFlight Insider and AmericaSpace and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly. He also did some supplementary writing for the iOS app Exoplanet.&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\nHe has been writing for EarthSky since 2018, and also assists with proofing and social media.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/space\/free-floating-planets-rogue-planets-planetary-systems-webb-space-telescope\/?rand=772280\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New research has found that rogue planets \u2013 planets that don\u2019t orbit stars \u2013 could have planets of their own. Watch this video for more details. Free-floating planets, or rogue&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":797763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-797762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=797762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/797763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=797762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=797762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=797762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}