It has long been agreed by scientists that the solar system the Earth belongs to is nothing significant in the context of the entire universe. In fact, Earth's neighbourhood is not even located at the center of its own galaxy. The planet is located in a group that is at one of the outer arms of the Milky Way galaxy. The realization of the insignificance of the solar system seems to be cemented more by recent discoveries of other groups more impressive than the planet's own. In fact, just recently a group of scientists have discovered a solar system infinitely more massive.
Last Tuesday, the Royal Astronomical Society announced the discovery of a link between a previously considered free floating planet, the 2MASS J2126, and the young star TYC 9486-927-1. Dr. Niall Deacon together with his team spent several years researching the relationship of young stars and their wide orbits. The research revealed that 2MASS J2126 and TYC 9486-927-1 are moving through space together.
"This is the widest planet system found so far and both the members of it have been known for eight years. But nobody had made the link between the objects before. The planet is not quite as lonely as we first thought, but it's certainly in a very long distance relationship" explained Dr. Deacon.
The study eventually confirmed that the brown dwarf orbits TYC 9486-927-1 despite the fact the planet is 7000 Earth-Sun distances or 1 trillion kilometres away. It takes 2MASSJ2126 900,000 earth years to go around its host sun and to its possible inhabitants TYC 9486-927-1 is just another bright star.
The discovery is indeed very exciting. However according to one of the scientists involved in the study more research is still needed in order to explain the phenomenon.
Compared to beta Pictoris b, 2MASS J2126 is more than 700 times further away from its host star but how such a wide planetary system forms and survives remains an open question" explained Dr. Simon Murphy, co-author of the paper.