Did you know that almost every star in the night sky has at least one planet orbiting around it?

The same can't be said for objects called Rogue Worlds.

A Rogue World is a planetary mass object that kind of free floats in space,

untethered to any star.

It's Tuesday, September 3rd, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm Cyfry producer Rasha Arredi.

Rogue worlds aren't planets, and they aren't stars either either but it's kind of in-between object

that just drifts around in space and with data from the James Webb Space Telescope

astrophysicists recently identified six right here in our own Milky Way galaxy.

So what can we learn from these rogue worlds?

Can they teach us anything about how stars and planets are formed?

Here's guest host Rachel Feldman with more.

Joining me to tell us more are two of the studies authors.

Astrophysicist Dr. Adam Lenga, as well as Dr Ray Jaiyawardina, a professor of physics and astronomy.

Welcome to Science Friday.

Good to be here, Rachel.

Yeah, thank you for having us today.

Thanks so much for being here.

So Adam, what exactly is a rogue world?

So a rogue world is kind of an object, a planetary mass object that kind of free floats in space, untethered to any star.

There are kind of two ways that this can come about.

The first is that these rogue objects can be formed similarly to stars where there's a kind of cloud of gas and dust that gravitation contracts and kind of forms this orb, this planet-star-like object.

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