NASA Believes They Might Find Millions or Even Billions of Rogue Planets I have talked about rogue stars and planets a few times over the many years I have been writing articles. They were the stuff of science fiction for many years until we found out they actually exist. When we did most of us came to the conclusion, they were extremely rare and you can understand why. To become a rogue planet or star you have to not only be knocked out of orbit with enough force to propel you through space, but you have to be able to withstand the force and not shatter. Wouldn’t you think this doesn’t happen very much? NASA is about to launch a mission to check out rogue planets. Their definition is planets which float in space without orbiting a sun. It is a little vaguer than one which states the planets are zipping through space. Anyway, they think there could be a chance these rogue planets could outnumber the number in the Milky Way. I guess if you consider the billions or more of galaxies which might exist that certainly could be a possibility, but that would not mean they were common. If you found a stone in a pile of millions of stones each time you checked a different pile, would that make the stone common even though there would be a lot of them? NASA believes their Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find hundreds of rogue planets. They are going to take the number they find and count them against the number of planets they looked at to infer how many might be in the universe. I can’t help but think this is faulty thinking. You might ask me why and if you did, I would say conditions in different galaxies could account for more or less rogue planets and there also could be many between galaxies. There were quite a few of these movies in the late 1950s through the 1980s. In 1951 a very good science fiction movie about the Earth being destroyed by a rogue planet came out. It was so good; it still looks good today. It was titled “When Worlds Collide.” It is in color and was produced by George Pal, a big name in science fiction movies at the time. It has to do with astronomers picking up a planet heading for the Earth. There isn’t anything that can be done to stop the rogue planet, so scientists have decided to build a spaceship and try and save the best and brightest to rebuild society. They are going to do this by repopulating the rogue planet whose gravity will tear the earth apart but has an atmosphere humans can breathe. In real life this probably never would have saved humanity for many reasons. First of all, the rogue planet will be drifting through space and it should get mighty cold without light an there won’t be any plants and no food. Also, if the gravity is that strong how could humans survive on the planet. I am sure there are many more reasons why the exodus to the new planet wouldn’t be a good idea. I would love to know why scientists think the universe could be full of rogue planets and let’s not forget rogue stars? The space between planets makes a hit by a rogue planet seem unlikely most of the time. I would think it would be much easier for asteroids and meteors to hit, just look at all the craters on the moon which is not as dynamic as the Earth. When we are hit the Earth will eventually hide the hit given enough time. A rogue star would present much more of a threat than a rogue planet because it is usually far bigger, hotter and will probably have far stronger gravity. Be this as it may, rogue black holes seem to be the biggest threat. Rogue black holes were picked as one of the ways the Earth could end by the History Channel. Let’s face it. They wouldn’t even have to get that close to us to destroy us. Talk about a large mass, the black hole at the center of our galaxy is 4.3 million times the size of our sun. Just imagine what this could do to us if it headed this way. The sizes for black holes usually run from about the size of our sun to billions of times that size. Recently some scientists have said they think there could be micro sized black holes in space. I have to wonder about that because previously it was believed a black hole is formed by certain types of collapsed stars. All this talk of rogue this and that in space makes me wonder if there are rouge solar systems? In a way you could say there are rogue galaxies because galaxies crash into each other all the time. Scientists are even taking this a step further by saying they might find out our solar system is unusual. We have found plenty of other ones when we search the heavens so this makes me wonder what they mean. It is being said the Roman telescope will incredibly be able to detect rogue planets as small as Mars. This search seems to be limited to our galaxy. Scientists are guessing they might find out there are tens of billions to trillions of rogue planets just in our galaxy. Sorry I need more convincing to believe that, not just some estimate. I still have yet to find the reason some scientists think this is a possibility. Solar systems are kept in place by gravity and all revolve around a center in the galaxy. Here is the way that is put, “Every object in the galaxy is in orbit around the center of the combined mass of the galaxy.” Some thought we orbit the black hole at the center, but that is not true, it just so happens it is there, it is the entire mass of the galaxy we orbit. Are there exceptions to this? I guess there are always exceptions to everything and there are a few stars which are so close to the galactic black hole they orbit it. Do we have to worry about being hit by a rogue planet? I think if we figure the time difference between when we would know it was heading this way and when it reached us, we would all be dead from old age. Every thing in the universe is in motion one way or another. Motion is natural for the universe.
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