Multimedia Gallery
Artist's impression of a free-floating planet
An artist's impression of a free-floating planet. Using observations and archival data from several of NSF's NOIRLab’s observatories, together with observations from telescopes around the world and in orbit, astronomers discovered at least 70 new free-floating planets -- planets that wander through space without a parent star -- in a nearby region of the Milky Way known as Upper Scorpius OB stellar association.
[NOIRLab is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation.]
Learn more in the NOIRLab news story Largest collection of free-floating planets fund in the Milky Way. (Date image taken: 2021; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: Jan. 20, 2022)
Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva (Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)
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