Understanding Rogues - What are Rogue Planets?

Understanding Rogues - What are Rogue Planets?
The Universe is so enormous that we just can't simply comprehend its vastness. If we just look into our local galaxy "The Milky Way", it is so gigantic that if we travel at the speed of light it will take us 52,850 years to cross it from start to end.

The Milky way is mainly composed of billions of stars and planets, gas, dust, and dark matter. We have 8 planets in our solar system and billions of exoplanets in other star systems. Apart from that, we have plenty of "rogue planets" in our galaxy as well.

Rogue planets are wandering planets free from the star systems. Why are they wandering? we don't have any proper explanations, but experts suggest that some of the rogue planets were part of other star systems and were ejected somewhere in past. However, some of the rogue planets were orphans by birth and were never part of any star system.

It is estimated that there are around 50 billion rogue planets in our galaxy alone. Rogue planets may or may not have their moons.

Is there any possibility of life on rogue planets? Experts say that If there is liquid water on any rogue planet, it might offer a chance to primitive life forms. Space is freezing at -270 degrees C. Under ordinary circumstances, it won't let the water be in liquid form on rogue planets.

However, if there is water on any rogue planet, the chances that it will be in a liquid state are very high. It is because the water reserves on the rogue planets will be protected by the ice cover. In addition, the hot core of the planet will prevent the water from getting frozen. This phenomenon can create a biosphere in the liquid water oceans which can be viable to microbial life forms.

There is a chance that life could exist on some of the rogue planets because even in some parts of Earth, life exists in extreme atmospheres, for example, the Mariana trench.
The Mariana Trench is the deepest place in the ocean which is 2550 km in depth and 69 km in width. The most exciting part is that in the extreme atmosphere of the Mariana trench there are still some microbial life forms.

Rogue planets are very hard to detect because they are small and they don't reflect any light at all. Another fact is that no rogue planet has even been captured with the digital eye till now.

From 1998 to 2021, around 70 - 170 planets have been suspected or confirmed as rogue planets. One of the rogue planets is found just 20 light years away from earth. It is 17000 times larger than our planet. There is almost no chance of this planet entering our solar system but just in a rare case if it will enter our solar system, we will be at high risk of getting eliminated.
We will cover the threats of the rogue planet to planet earth in our next episode.