Mysterious ‘rogue planet’ is spotted near solar system

Don’t panic, but scientists say that a strange ‘rogue planet’ wandering through space near our solar system may be even more mysterious than we thought.

Well, we say ‘near’ our solar system, but you won’t exactly be going there for the Easter break – the object, CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9, is 100 light years away.

Scientists are now puzzling over what the mysterious object is – is it a rogue, free-floating planet, or something even stranger?

Scientists now believe that the planet – found in 2012 – might be a ‘brown dwarf’ – an object too small to be a star, but too big to be a planet.

‘CFBDSIR 2149-0403 is an atypical substellar object that is either a ‘free-floating planet’ or a rare high-metallicity brown dwarf. Or a combination of both,’ said Dr Philippe Delorme from Grenoble Alpes University in France.

‘We now reject our initial hypothesis that CFBDSIR 2149-0403 would be a member of the AB Doradus moving group.

‘Though determining that certainly improved our knowledge of the object it also made it more difficult to study, by adding age as a free parameter.’

Writer: Rob Waugh for Metro.co.uk