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Space
Space
Science
Robert Lea

Hubble Space Telescope spots rogue planet with a little help from Einstein: 'It was a lucky break'

Hubble Albert Einstein The Hubble Space Telescope Earth
(Main) An illustration of a rogue planet causing gravitational lensing (Inset) The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around Earth .

Astronomers discovered a new rogue planet lurking in archival data gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the find is thanks to a little serendipity — and a little help from the genius himself, Albert Einstein.

Rogue, or "free-floating," planets are worlds that don't orbit a star. They earn their rogue status when they are ejected from their home systems due to interactions with their sibling planets or via gravitational upheaval caused by passing stars.

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