In 2020, astronomer Przemek Mróz from the University of Warsaw made the first credible sighting of an Earth-size “rogue planet,” a planet untethered to any star, floating freely between the stars.
Over the previous decade, three other sky-monitoring projects had already found evidence of even more massive, Jupiter-like planets drifting alone through space. Last year, a group working on the MOA (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) survey found a second likely rogue planet the size of Earth. It became evident that these discoveries represented an entire, previously unknown class of celestial objects – planets that do not orbit any star; they are not part of any solar system.
The United States and China are scheduled to launch two new space telescopes, using fast infrared cameras, to track down more of these wanderers. NASA’s US $3.9 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set for launch in 2027. By 2032, Roman could increase the number of known rogue planets by a factor of 100.
Mróz states: “The conclusion is now strong. We have a huge population of low-mass, free-floating planets in the Milky Way. They seem to be really common. Current estimates are that there may be seven such planets per every star.” That translates to potentially trillions of rogue planets in our galaxy alone. We just didn’t know about them until now.
“Not only do rogue planets outnumber visible stars, they probably also outnumber conventional planets…. If anything, worlds like ours are the outliers.” (IEEE Spectrum)
In fact, the Earth is unique in all of the observable universe.
Rethinking How Planets Form
Secular science still uses the Big Bang theory to explain the origin of the universe. One tenet of that theory holds that planets coalesced from huge clouds of dust that surrounded infant stars—the “nebular hypothesis.”
That lovely picture of harmony began to crack in 1995, when Swiss astronomers Marcel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered 51 Pegasi, the first known planet around another, sunlike star. The world they found contradicted many of the conventional ideas about how planets are born. It orbits much closer to its star, in a zone where temperatures are far too high for any planet to form. Soon after, researchers found similar “hot Jupiters” around other stars.
The existence of so many rogue planets now adds to the problems with this origin theory. To make them fit the Big Bang theory, Astronomers speculate that these planets must have formed around stars at one time and then drifted off to their current positions. So far, however, no evidence has been seen to support this.
There are other problems with the nebular hypothesis, such as the fact that many planets orbit stars sideways or retrograde, making it unlikely that they formed this way. In addition, every observed cloud of dust has been seen to be expanding and not contracting, so they could not be creating new stars or planets.
Rogue planets are shaking up astronomers’ ideas about planetary formation in another way, too. At least some of the rogues appear to have formed in place: not exiled but born in solitude, apart from any star. These are detectable because they are young and massive enough to emit enough heat to be detected with an infrared telescope.
British and Spanish teams have found numbers of these massive, starless, newborn planets wandering in Orion. Last year, the James Webb Space Telescope found 540 more self-made planets in the Orion Nebula.
Detection of these objects using ‘gravitational microlensing’ is gaining momentum. The technique is based on an effect of general relativity that Albert Einstein described. Einstein had established that the gravitational field of a massive object can deflect the path of a beam of light. It was the observation of bent starlight during the 1919 solar eclipse that validated his theory of general relativity and made Einstein a global celebrity.
Using this technique, new tools like NASA’s Roman Space Telescope are shedding light on these invisible planets in increasing numbers.
Why does it matter?
Every year, more discoveries are made that upend so-called ‘settled science’ about the universe's origins. The more we learn, the more we see that scientific reality does not support the theory.
That’s not surprising. Advances in science are upending origin theories on every level – from geology to biology, astronomy, and physics. The natural world and universe are infinitely more complex than we assumed and are governed by well-defined laws and intelligent designs.
In fact, the more we discover, the harder it is to deny that it is all the result of an intelligent design. It is the handiwork of an intelligent designer.
The Apostle Paul said it best:
“His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So people are without excuse.” — Romans 1:20
The evidence is clear that God has gone to extreme lengths to reveal Himself through a truly remarkable and indescribable creation.
Its wonder is exceeded only by His indescribable love for us!
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