Artist's impression of a free-floating planet

An artist's impression of a free-floating planet. Using observations and archival data from several of NSF NOIRLab’s observatories, together with observations from telescopes around the world and in orbit, astronomers have discovered at least 70 new free-floating planets — planets that wander through space without a parent star — in a nearby region of the Milky Way known as Upper Scorpius OB stellar association.