Wandering Planet advert space tourist vacation Acrylic Award

This award features a gorgeous, retro-style vacation advert. PSO J318.5-22 belongs to a special class of planets called rogue, or free-floating, planets. Wandering alone in the galaxy, with no parent star to orbit. Not much is known about how these planets come to exist - they may be either failed stars or planets ejected from very young systems after an encounter with another planet. These rogue planets glow faintly from the heat of their formation but once they cool down, they will be dancing in the dark. Image credit: NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program Office