{"id":228264,"date":"2026-01-03T01:15:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/astronomers-measure-the-mass-of-a-planet-with-no-star-for-the-first-time"},"modified":"2026-01-03T01:15:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:15:30","slug":"astronomers-measure-the-mass-of-a-planet-with-no-star-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/astronomers-measure-the-mass-of-a-planet-with-no-star-for-the-first-time","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Measure The Mass of a Planet With No Star For The First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/astronomers-measure-the-mass-of-a-planet-with-no-star-for-the-first-time.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Not all planets are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood like our Solar System \u2013 some are doomed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/there-could-be-billions-of-loose-planets-roaming-the-milky-way\">roam the cosmos alone<\/a>. Astronomers have now, for the first time, measured the mass of, and distance to, one of these lonely worlds.<\/p>\n<p>The planet packs about a fifth of the mass of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/the-weirdest-facts-about-jupiter\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_self\">Jupiter<\/a>, and is located a little under 10,000 light-years away from Earth, towards the center of our galaxy. That size suggests it most likely formed as part of a planetary system, before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/rogue-planet-the-size-of-earth-found-drifting-through-the-dark-on-its-own\">being exiled<\/a> by a game of gravitational billiards.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/record-smashing-rogue-planet-caught-growing-at-6-billion-tons-per-second\">Record-Smashing Rogue Planet Caught Growing at 6 Billion Tons Per Second<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not all planets are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood like our Solar System \u2013 some are doomed to roam the cosmos alone. Astronomers have now, for the first time, measured the mass of, and distance to, one of these lonely worlds. The planet packs about a fifth of the mass of Jupiter, and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}