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NASA has found six rogue planets roaming in space, bound to no star, indifferent to the laws of the universe. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) made the discovery, including one object that is one of the lightest such bodies ever found. It even has a dusty disk around it, indicating it might host its own moons and planets.

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Looking at these rogue planets, astronomers believe that similar cosmic processes might be responsible for star formation and also for making objects that are only slightly larger than Jupiter.

The researchers say that the rogue planets hint at the likelihood that a cosmic body resembling a young Jupiter might have become a star instead under certain conditions.

Lead author Adam Langeveld, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, said, “If you have an object that looks like a young Jupiter, is it possible that it could have become a star under the right conditions? This is important context for understanding both star and planet formation.”

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JWST located the rogue planets in the young nebula NGC 1333. This star-forming cluster is located about a thousand light-years away in the Perseus constellation. 

These gas giants have masses ranging from 5 to 10 times that of Jupiter. Most of them were likely formed in a similar fashion as stars and brown dwarfs, that is collapsing clouds of gas and dust. However, a body fails to turn into a star when hydrogen fusion doesn't happen, and it then slowly fades away.

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“We used Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity at infrared wavelengths to search for the faintest members of a young star cluster, seeking to address a fundamental question in astronomy: How light an object can form like a star?” said Johns Hopkins Provost Ray Jayawardhana.

“It turns out the smallest free-floating objects that form like stars overlap in mass with giant exoplanets circling nearby stars," the astrophysicist and senior author of the study added.

The discovery of a rogue planet with a disk around it indicates the presence of "mini planets" or moons. Study co-author Aleks Scholz, an astrophysicist at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, said that this means some of these tiny objects with masses close to "giant planets may themselves be able to form their own planets."

What are rogue planets?

Rogue planets are "free-floating planets" that are not bound by the gravitational pull of any star. Hence, these bodies do not orbit a star. The planets in our solar system are gravitationally bound to the sun. But rogue planets move through interstellar space as they wish. Their size can vary depending on various factors and they can be anywhere between the size of Earth or larger than Jupiter.

Some rogue planets form inside a solar system but are thrown out because of gravitational pulls being exerted by other planets or stars.