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It’s a bit unfair, when you come to think of it, that the space boffins are using the word “rogue” to describe those planets which float freely through the universe, untethered to any star.
After all, it’s not their fault that they don’t have a Big Brother around which they orbit and which offers them heat and light.
The Euclid space telescope has discovered seven more rogue planets which, according to scientists, languish in perpetual night.
The European Space Agency, which runs Euclid, released the latest results from it, showing that some of these “gas giants” are four times the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our own – and puny, by the standards of the universe – solar system.
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The new discoveries are at least 1 500 light years away, comparatively close by celestial standards but almost impossible for the human mind to grasp.
Most interesting of all is that, the scientists believe, there may be trillions dotted throughout the Milky Way, our own galaxy.
More than that, though, because of the huge numbers out there, at least some must be habitable for humans.
We’ll never see that in our lifetime, but the discoveries remind us of the immensity of space.
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