The origin of free-floating planets

Abstract

Free-floating planets (FFPs) are the lightest products of star formation and they carry important information on the initial conditions of the environment in which they were formed. They were first discovered in the 2000 s but still few of them have been identified and confirmed due to observational challenges. This is a review of the last advances in the detection of these objects and the understanding of their origin. Several studies indicate that the observed fraction of FFPs outnumbers the prediction of turbulent fragmentation and suggest that many were formed in planetary systems that were later abandoned. The JWST will certainly constitute a new step further in the detection and characterisation of FFPs. To interpret these new observations, precise ages for the nearby star-forming regions in which they were formed will be necessary.

A Radio Counterpart to a Jupiter-mass Binary Object in Orion

“…Rogue planets (single planets not gravitationally bound to any star or brown dwarf, also known as free-floating or orphan planets) have been detected in the optical and near-infrared (Lucas & Roche 2000;Zapatero Osorio et al 2000). This latter class of single sources, however, is compatible with the known physical conditions of forming stellar and planetary systems (Hurley & Shara 2002;Kroupa & Bouvier 2003;Whitworth & Zinnecker 2004;Miret-Roig 2023). We have searched for radio counterparts to the 42 JuMBOs in Orion using sensitive observations from the archive of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).…”