PSO J318.5-22, The floating planet Options

[MarcF]

A great discovery
Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS 1 wide-field survey telescope on Haleakala, Maui, have discovered a very young free-floating planet named PSO J318.5-22

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-...anet-01450.html

[ngunn]

Yes. It's at about 1100 Kelvins, squarely in the brown dwarf range, but from its spectral features they infer a low mass of 6 Jupiters and a young age of only 12 million years. I have to wonder how secure those inferences are. Anyhow suppose we accept them then this object is only hot and bright enough to detect because it is so young. We have had about 12 billion years to produce these things so the question arises: are there another 999 of them within a similar distance range that are older, colder and more difficult to observe?