New predictions suggest an upcoming NASA space telescope could spot over 400 Earth-mass worlds hidden throughout the Milky Way that have "gone rogue" and therefore wander our galaxy alone.
Such orphan worlds are thought to start their lives in a planetary system, akin to the solar system, but get kicked at some point out by a mechanism thus far unknown. Despite the familiar picture of planets neatly orbiting a star, new research suggests such orphaned starless worlds may outnumber stars in the Milky Way by 20 to 1. This implies untethered worlds in our galaxy are around six times more common than planets orbiting parent stars.
