Some moons around distant, giant planets can break free of their orbits and end up circling the host star like a planet instead. An international team of astronomers have descried these hypothetical moons as ploonets.
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Ploonets form when moons orbiting a planet escape their orbit. They are flung into a wider orbit around the host star and end up circling like a planet instead.
Researchers reveal that ploonets can form when gas giants like Jupiter are forced to migrate closer to their star, causing a transfer of angular momentum to their moons.
Such exomoons — moons in other star systems — have around a 50 per cent chance of becoming a ploonet, else they get ejected into space or collide with their planet.
No longer shielded by the magnetic field of their original host, however, ploonets are fated for doom — as they are gradually eroded away in the glare of stellar radiation.
In a paper to be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the researchers however, concede that ploonets remain hypothetical.
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