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Space
Space
Science
Robert Lea

James Webb Space Telescope finds giant, lonely exoplanets can build their own planetary friends without a parent star

An illustration of a planetary system developing around a free floating rogue planet.

Our parochial view of planets orbiting a central star — so familiar because it is the layout seen in the solar system — could be irrevocably shattered by new research that suggests giant, free-floating planets could form their own planetary systems. If true, that also means planetary systems may exist with no parent star.

These rogue planetary systems would also be much smaller than the solar system, possessing just a fraction of the total mass of our cosmic neighborhood.

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