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Yakubu Gowon:
'Yakubu Dan-Yumma "Jack" Gowon' (born 19 October 1934) is a Nigerian general and statesman who served as the military head of state of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975. The Nigerian Civil War is listed as one of the deadliest in modern history, with some accusing Gowon of crimes against humanity and genocide. Gowon has maintained that he committed no wrongdoing during the war and that his leadership saved the country.
An Anglican Christian from a minority Ngas ethnic group of Northern Nigeria, Gowon is a Nigerian nationalist, and a believer in the unity and oneness of Nigeria. His rise to power followed the July 1966 counter-coup and cemented military rule in Nigeria. Consequently, Gowon served for the longest continuous period as head of state of Nigeria, ruling for almost nine years until his overthrow in the coup d'état of 1975 by Brigadier Murtala Mohammed.
Early life.
Gowon is an Ngas (Angas) from Lur, a small village in the present Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau State. His parents, Nde Yohanna and Matwok Kurnyang, left for Wusasa, Zaria, as Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in the early days of Gowon's life. His father took pride in the fact that he married on 26 April 1923, the same day as the wedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). Gowon was the fifth of eleven children. He grew up in Zaria and had his early life and education there. At school, Gowon proved to be a remarkable athlete: he was the school football goalkeeper, pole vaulter, and long-distance runner. He broke the school mile record in his first year. He was also the boxing captain.
Early career.
Gowon joined the Nigerian Army in 1954 and received his commission as a second lieutenant on 19 October 1955, his 21st birthday. He was trained in the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK (1955–56), Staff College, Camberley, UK (1962) as well as the Joint Staff College, Latimer, 1965. He saw action in the Congo as part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, both in 1960–61 and in 1963. He advanced to battalion commander position by 1966, at which time he was still a lieutenant colonel.
1966 coup.
In January 1966, he became Nigeria's youngest military chief of staff at the age of 31, because a military coup d'état by a group of junior officers under Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu led to the overthrow of Nigeria's civilian government. In the course of this coup, mostly northern and western leaders were killed, including Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria's Prime Minister; Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region; and Samuel Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, Lt Col Arthur Unegbe and so many more. The then Lieutenant Colonel Gowon returned from his course at the Joint Staff College, Latimer UK two days before the coup – a late arrival that possibly exempted him from the plotters' hit list. The subsequent failure by Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi (who was the head of state following the January 1966 coup-with Gowon his Chief of Staff) to meet Northern demands for the prosecution of the coup plotters further inflamed Northern anger. There was significant support for the coup plotters from both the Eastern Region as well as the mostly left-wing "Lagos-Ibadan" press.
July counter coup.
Then came Aguyi Ironsi's Decree Number 34, which proposed the abolition of the federal system of government in favor of a unitary state, a position which had long been championed by some Southerners-especially by a major section of the Igbo-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NCNC) This was perhaps wrongly interpreted by Northerners as a Southern (particularly Igbo) attempt at a takeover of all levers of power in the country. The North lagged badly behind the Western and Eastern regions in terms of education (partially due to Islamic doctrine-informed resistance to western cultural and social ethos), while the mostly-Igbo Easterners were already present in the federal civil service.
The original intention of Murtala Mohammed and his fellow coup-plotters was to engineer the secession of the Northern region from Nigeria as a whole, but they were subsequently dissuaded of their plans by several advisors, amongst which were a number of high-ranking civil servants and judges, and importantly emissaries of the British and American governments who had interests in the Nigerian polity. The young officers then decided to name Lieutenant Colonel Gowon, who apparently had not been actively involved in events until that point, as Nigerian Head of State. On ascent to power Gowon reversed Ironsi's abrogation of the federal principle.
Head of state.
In 1966, Gowon was chosen to become head of state. Up until then, Gowon remained strictly a career soldier with no involvement whatsoever in politics, until the tumultuous events of the year suddenly thrust him into a leadership role, when his unusual background as a Northerner who was neither of Hausa nor Fulani ancestry nor of the Islamic faith made him a particularly safe choice to lead a nation whose population was seething with ethnic tension.
Gowon promoted himself twice as Nigerian Head of State. Gowon was a Lt. Colonel upon his ascendancy to the top of the new Federal military government of Nigeria on 1 August 1966, however other senior military officers such as Commodore Joseph Wey, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, and Colonel Robert Adebayo were a part of the government and their military seniority to Gowon was awkward. To stabilize his position as Head of State, Gowon promoted himself to Major-General just before the start of the civil war hostilities in 1967 and to full General at the end of the civil war in 1970.
Civil war leader.
In anticipation of eastern secession, Gowon moved quickly to weaken the support base of the region by decreeing the creation of twelve new states to replace the four regions. Six of these states contained minority groups that had demanded state creation since the 1950s. Gowon rightly calculated that the eastern minorities would not actively support the Igbos, given the prospect of having their own states if the secession effort were defeated. Many of the federal troops who fought in the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, to bring the Eastern Region back to the federation, were members of minority groups.
The war lasted thirty months and ended in January 1970. In accepting Biafra's unconditional cease-fire, Gowon declared that there would be no victor and no vanquished. In this spirit, the years afterward were declared to be a period of rehabilitation, reconstruction, and reconciliation. The oil-price boom, which began as a result of the high price of crude oil (the country's major revenue earner) in the world market in 1973, increased the federal government's ability to undertake these tasks. The outcome of this summit was the Aburi Accord. The Aburi Accord did not see the light of the day, as the Gowon led government had huge consideration for the possible revenues, especially oil revenues which were expected to increase given that reserves having been discovered in the area in the mid-1960s. It has been said without confirmation that both Gowon and Ojukwu had knowledge of the huge oil reserves in the Niger Delta area, which today has grown to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. One controversial aspect of this move was Gowon's annexing of Port Harcourt, a large city in the Niger Delta, in the South of Nigeria (the Ikwerres and Ijaws), sitting on some of Nigeria's largest reserves, into the new Rivers State, emasculating the migrant Igbo population of traders there. The flight of many of them back to their villages in the "Igbo heartland" in Eastern Nigeria where they felt safer was alleged to be a contradiction for Gowon's "no victor, no vanquished" policy, when at the end of the war, the properties they left behind were claimed by the Rivers State indigenes.
Towards the end of July 1967, Nigerian federal troops and marines captured Bonny Island in the Niger Delta, thereby taking control of vital Shell-BP facilities. Operations began again in May 1968, when Nigeria captured Port Harcourt. Its facilities had been damaged and needed repair. Oil production and export continued, but at a lower level. The completion in 1969 of a new terminal at Forçados brought production up from 142,000 barrels/day in 1958 to 540,000 barrels/day in 1969. In 1970, this figure doubled to 1.08 million barrels/day.
Minority ethnicities of the Eastern Region were rather not sanguine about the prospect of secession, as it would mean living in what they felt would be an Igbo-dominated nation. Some non-Igbos living in the Eastern Region either refrained from offering active support to the Biafran struggle, or actively aided the federal side by enlisting in the Nigerian army and feeding it intelligence about Biafran military activities. However, some did play active roles in the Biafran government, with N.U. Akpan serving as Secretary to the Government, Lt. Col (later Major-General) Philip Effiong, serving as Biafra's Chief of Defence Staff and others like Chiefs Bassey and Graham-Douglas serving in other significant roles.
On 30 May 1967, Ojukwu responded to Gowon's announcement by declaring the formal secession of the Eastern Region, which was now to be known as the Republic of Biafra. This was to trigger a war that would last some 30 months, and see the deaths of more than 100,000 federal soldiers and three million Biafran combatants and civilians, most of the latter of which perished through starvation under a Nigerian-imposed blockade. The war saw a massive expansion of the Nigerian Army in size and a steep increase in its doctrinal and technical sophistication, while the Nigerian Air Force was essentially born in the course of the conflict. However, significant controversy has surrounded the air operations of the Nigerian Forces, as several residents of Biafra, including Red Cross workers, foreign missionaries and journalists, accused the Nigerian Air Force of specifically targeting civilian populations, relief centers and marketplaces. Gowon has steadfastly denied those claims, along with claims that his army committed atrocities such as rape, wholesale executions of civilian populations and extensive looting in occupied areas; however, one of his wartime commanders, Benjamin Adekunle seems to give some credence to these claims in his book, while excusing them as unfortunate by-products of war.
"No victor, no vanquished".
The end of the war came about on 13 January 1970, with Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo's acceptance of the surrender of Biafran forces. The next day, Obasanjo announced the situation on the former rebel radio station Radio Biafra Enugu. Gowon subsequently made his famous "no victor, no vanquished" speech, and followed it up with an amnesty for the majority of those who had participated in the Biafran uprising, as well as a program of "Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation", to repair the extensive damage done to the economy and infrastructure of the Eastern Region during the years of war. Some of these efforts never left the drawing board. In addition to this, Gen. Gowon's administration's policy of leaving only 20 pounds for Biafrans who had a bank account in Nigeria before the war, regardless of how much money had been in their account, was criticised by foreign and local aid workers, as this led to an unprecedented scale of begging, looting and robbery in the former Biafran areas after the war.
Another decision made by Gowon at the height of the oil boom was to have what some considered negative repercussions for the Nigerian economy in later years, although its immediate effects were scarcely noticeable – his indigenization decree of 1972, which declared many sectors of the Nigerian economy off-limits to all foreign investment, while ruling out more than minority participation by foreigners in several other areas. This decree provided windfall gains to several well-connected Nigerians but proved highly detrimental to non-oil investment in the Nigerian economy.
The post-civil-war years saw Nigeria enjoying a meteoric, oil-fuelled, economic upturn in the course of which the scope of activity of the Nigerian federal government grew to an unprecedented degree, with increased earnings from oil revenues. However, this period also saw a rapid increase in corruption, mostly bribery, of and by federal government officials; and although the head of State himself, Gen. Gowon, was never found complicit in the corrupt practices, he was often accused of turning a blind eye to the activities of his staff and cronies.
On 1 October 1974, in flagrant contradiction to his earlier promises, Gowon declared that Nigeria would not be ready for civilian rule by 1976, and he announced that the handover date would be postponed indefinitely. Furthermore, because of the growth in bureaucracy, there were allegations of rise in corruption. Increased wealth in the country resulted in fake import licenses being issued. There were stories of tons of stones and sand being imported into the country, and of General Gowon himself saying to a foreign reporter that "the only problem Nigeria has is how to spend the money she has."
The cement armada affair.
The corruption in Gowon's administration culminated in the notorious "cement armada" affair in the summer of 1975, when the port of Lagos became jammed with hundreds of ships trying to unload cement. Somehow, agents of the Nigerian government had signed contracts with 68 different international suppliers for the delivery of a total of 20 million tons of cement in one year to Lagos, even though its port could only accept one million tons of cargo per year. Even worse, the poorly drafted cement contracts included demurrage clauses highly favorable to the suppliers, meaning that the bill began to skyrocket if the ships sat in port waiting to unload (or even if they sat in their home ports waiting for permission to depart for Nigeria). The Nigerian government did not fully grasp the magnitude of its mistake until the port of Lagos was so badly jammed that basic supplies could not get through. By that time it was too late. Its attempts to repudiate the cement contracts and impose an emergency embargo on all inbound shipping tied up the country in litigation around the world for many years, including a 1983 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Overthrow.
These scandals provoked serious discontent within the army. On 29 July 1975, while Gowon was attending an OAU summit in Kampala, a group of officers led by Colonel Joe Nanven Garba announced his overthrow. The coup plotters appointed Brigadier Murtala Muhammed as head of the new government, and Brigadier Olusegun Obasanjo as his deputy. he met with Gowon in London and obtained support from him for the coup. In addition, Dimka mentioned before his execution that the purpose of the coup d'état was to re-install Gowon as head of state. As a result of the coup tribunal findings, Gowon was declared wanted by the Nigerian government, stripped of his rank in absentia, and had his pension cut off.
Gowon was finally pardoned, along with the ex-Biafran president, Emeka Ojukwu, during the Second Republic under President Shehu Shagari. Gowon's rank of general was not restored until 1987 however by General Ibrahim Babangida.
Later life.
After earning his doctorate at the University of Warwick, Gowon became a professor of political science at the University of Jos in the mid-1980s.
In November 2020, MP Tom Tugendhat, while speaking against the Nigerian government's repression of the 2020 #EndSARS mass protests, accused Gowon of looting "half of the Central Bank of Nigeria" after his overthrow in the coup d'état of 1975. The statement, the first-ever attempt to link Gowon with corruption, was faced with considerable backlash within Nigeria, with Bishop Matthew Kukah writing in the national major Daily Trust describing the seemingly ridiculous comment as "It is difficult to understand how a Member of the revered British Parliament worth his salt, could have left himself open to ridicule by leveling the unfounded, irrational and bizarre allegations of corruption against General Yakubu Gowon, our former Head of State and to the hilt, the nation's poster face of probity in public life." Following an official demand for an apology by the Nigerian government, the Foreign Office later disassociated itself from the comment stating that, "the said comment of the MP does not reflect the views of Her Majesty's Government and the British Government has no mechanism for controlling the actions and speeches of members of the Parliament."
In February 2024, Gowon, who is the last surviving founder of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), called on the bloc to lift sanctions against Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, whose military-led governments had announced their countries' departure from the organization in response to the sanctions.
Personal life.
Gowon married Victoria Zakari, a trained nurse in 1969 at a ceremony officiated by Seth Irunsewe Kale at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos.
Renegades (Rage Against the Machine album):
'Renegades' is the fourth and final studio album by the American rock band Rage Against the Machine, released on December 5, 2000, by Epic Records. It consists of covers of songs by Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Afrika Bambaataa, Minor Threat, Eric B. & Rakim, the Stooges, MC5, the Rolling Stones, Cypress Hill, Devo and others. The cover is a take on Robert Indiana's Love artwork series.
Unlike other Rage Against the Machine albums, Renegades was not accompanied by a supporting tour due to the band splitting up almost two months before its release. It was certified platinum a little over a month after release. Shortly after the release, the band members, with the exception of lead vocalist Zack de la Rocha, formed a new band, Audioslave, with then-former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell.
Critical reception.
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Renegades has an average score of 78 based on 26 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". AllMusic critic John Bush wrote that the record "works well with just a bare few exceptions, in part because Rage Against the Machine is both smart enough to change very little and talented enough to make the songs its own." Alternative Press described the record as "a tour through three decades of sonic recalcitrance" and "the genome map of seditious sound". Entertainment Weeklys Rob Brunner described the record as "a remarkably diverse, if not exactly surprising, mix of heavy rock, hip hop and protest music". He said it "would still be a raging success even if this disc does nothing but introduce a new generation to the joys of Bob Dylan and Minor Threat".
Mojo wrote: "This crisp, Rick Rubin-produced outing packs away a machine that was well-oiled to the last." Kitty Empire of NME labeled the record "a brilliant archaeology" and "a sonic history lesson". The Rolling Stone critic Tom Moon said the band executed "diverse tracks" such as Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad", the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man", Afrika Bambaataa's "Renegades of Funk" and Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" with "the roaring, fearless spirit that’s been missing in action since these songs were new", while Select regarded it as their "most satisfying record since their debut".
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies:
The 'Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies' ('PIMS') is a research institute in the University of Toronto that is dedicated to advanced studies in the culture of the Middle Ages.
Governance.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, currently Francis Leo, T.O.P., acts as the chancellor of the institute. The Praeses (or president) of the institute is Augustine Thompson, O.P.
History.
It was founded in 1929 as the 'Institute of Mediaeval Studies' at St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto. Étienne Gilson, then of the Sorbonne, was instrumental in its foundation, along with Henry Carr and Edmund J. McCorkell of the Congregation of St. Basil and St. Michael's College. In 1939 it was granted a pontifical charter by Pope Pius XII, by which it was given the power to grant licenciate and doctorate degrees in medieval studies.
In 1964 the University of Toronto established the Centre for Medieval Studies as part of the School of Graduate Studies, for students pursuing a master's degree or doctorate in medieval studies. Teaching at these levels gradually passed from the institute to the centre. (The centre officially uses the spelling "medieval" while PIMS uses "mediaeval".) Students of the Centre for Medieval Studies have access to the PIMS building and library.
Up until 1958 the institute had its own charter. From 1958 to 2005, PIMS was a division of the University of St. Michael's College. The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Act of 2005 gave the institute academic autonomy from the university, with which, however, it remains affiliated. Under the act, PIMS is administered by a board of governors with its academic affairs vested in the Institute Council of the academic staff, consisting of fellows and associate fellows.
Postdoctoral Program and Licence in Mediaeval Studies.
In 1998 the institute became an exclusively postdoctoral research centre, and it accepts students who have recently completed their doctoral studies and wish to conduct specialized research in medieval studies. PIMS offers a Licence in Mediaeval Studies (LMS) as a degree exclusively for students who have completed their postdoctoral studies there. (The application for the LMS refers to it as a "Licentiate" and not as a "Licence.") Unusually for a Pontifical licentiate, the degree is awarded after its bearer has already earned a doctorate, and not on the way to such.
Étienne Gilson Lecture.
Since 1979 the institute has hosted an annual lecture from "a senior medievalist" in honour of its co-founder and his research interests. Previous lecturers include Jaroslav Pelikan, Mark D. Jordan, John F. Wippel, Peter Brown, and Francis Oakley. Lectures have been given on topics such as medieval philosophy, medieval art, medicine in the Middle Ages, and medieval historiography.
Library.
The institute has its own library with over 150,000 volumes, one of the largest collections of medieval documentation in North America. The library is part of the larger system of the University of Toronto Libraries. The library contains over 9,000 reels of microfilm and over 60,000 slides. Materials are non-circulating, and use of the library is generally restricted to PIMS and Centre for Medieval Studies faculty, researchers, and graduate students, though visitor passes may be obtained by contacting the library itself.
Publishing.
PIMS also has an extensive publishing program that includes its annual journal of research on the Middle Ages, Mediaeval Studies, which began in 1939. In 2004, it had reached the 66th volume. A collection of Gilson Lectures focusing on Thomas Aquinas was published in 2008.
Faculty and fellows.
Faculty and research fellows, visiting and otherwise, associated with PIMS have included:
Rogue planet:
A 'rogue planet', also termed a 'free-floating planet' ('FFP') or an 'isolated planetary-mass object' ('iPMO'), is an interstellar object of planetary mass which is not gravitationally bound to any star or brown dwarf.
Rogue planets may originate from planetary systems in which they are formed and later ejected, or they can also form on their own, outside a planetary system. The Milky Way alone may have billions to trillions of rogue planets, a range the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to refine. The odds of a rogue planet entering the solar system, much less posing a direct threat to life on Earth are slim to none with the odds being about one in one trillion within the next 1,000 years.
Some planetary-mass objects may have formed in a similar way to stars, and the International Astronomical Union has proposed that such objects be called sub-brown dwarfs. A possible example is Cha 110913−773444, which may either have been ejected and become a rogue planet or formed on its own to become a sub-brown dwarf.
Terminology.
The two first discovery papers use the names isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) wandering planet in different press releases.
Discovery.
Isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) were first discovered in 2000 by the UK team Lucas & Roche with UKIRT in the Orion Nebula. In the same year the Spanish team Zapatero Osorio et al. discovered iPMOs with Keck spectroscopy in the σ Orionis cluster. that were spectroscopically confirmed years later in 2004 by the US team Luhman et al.
Observation.
There are two techniques to discover free-floating planets: direct imaging and microlensing.
Microlensing.
Astrophysicist Takahiro Sumi of Osaka University in Japan and colleagues, who form the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment collaborations, published their study of microlensing in 2011. They observed 50 million stars in the Milky Way by using the MOA-II telescope at New Zealand's Mount John Observatory and the University of Warsaw telescope at Chile's Las Campanas Observatory. They found 474 incidents of microlensing, ten of which were brief enough to be planets of around Jupiter's size with no associated star in the immediate vicinity. The researchers estimated from their observations that there are nearly two Jupiter-mass rogue planets for every star in the Milky Way. One study suggested a much larger number, up to 100,000 times more rogue planets than stars in the Milky Way, though this study encompassed hypothetical objects much smaller than Jupiter. A 2017 study by Przemek Mróz of Warsaw University Observatory and colleagues, with six times larger statistics than the 2011 study, indicates an upper limit on Jupiter-mass free-floating or wide-orbit planets of 0.25 planets per main-sequence star in the Milky Way.
In September 2020, astronomers using microlensing techniques reported the detection, for the first time, of an Earth-mass rogue planet (named OGLE-2016-BLG-1928) unbound to any star and free floating in the Milky Way galaxy.
Direct imaging.
Microlensing planets can only be studied by the microlensing event, which makes the characterization of the planet difficult. Astronomers therefore turn to isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) that were found via the direct imaging method. To determine a mass of a brown dwarf or iPMO one needs for example the luminosity and the age of an object. Determining the age of a low-mass object has proven to be difficult. It is no surprise that the vast majority of iPMOs are found inside young nearby star-forming regions of which astronomers know their age. These objects are younger than 200 Myrs, are massive (>5 ) Nearby rogue planet candidates of spectral type Y include WISE 0855−0714 at a distance of . If this sample of Y-dwarfs can be characterized with more accurate measurements or if a way to better characterize their ages can be found, the number of old and cold iPMOs will likely increase significantly.
The first iPMOs were discovered in the early 2000s via direct imaging inside young star-forming regions. None of the iPMOs found inside young star-forming regions show a high velocity compared to their star-forming region. For old iPMOs the cold WISE J0830+2837 one alternative scenario explains this object as an ejected exoplanet due to its high Vtan of about 200 km/s, but its color suggests it is an old metal-poor brown dwarf. Most astronomers studying massive iPMOs believe that they represent the low-mass end of the star-formation process. Spectroscopic observations of OTS 44 with the SINFONI spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope have revealed that the disk is actively accreting matter, similar to the disks of young stars. WISE 1828+2650, WISE 0146+4234, WISE J0336−0143 (could also be a brown dwarf and a planetary-mass object (BD+PMO) binary), NIRISS-NGC1333-12 and several objects discovered by Zhang et al. If they formed like stars, then there must be an unknown "extra ingredient" to allow them to form. If they formed like planets and were later ejected, then it has to be explained why these binaries did not break apart during the ejection process. Future measurements with JWST might resolve if these objects formed as ejected planets or as stars. Kevin Luhman reanalysed the NIRCam data and found that most JuMBOs did not appear in his sample of substellar objects. Moreover, the color was consistent with reddened background sources or low signal-to-noise sources. He considers only JuMBO 29 as a good candidate for a binary planetary-mass system.
Total number of known iPMOs.
There are likely hundreds Follow-up observations with spectroscopy from the Subaru Telescope and Gran Telescopio Canarias showed that the contamination of this sample is quite low (≤6%). The 16 young objects had a mass between 3 and 14 , confirming that they are indeed planetary-mass objects.
Formation like a star.
Objects with a mass of at least one Jupiter mass were thought to be able to form via collapse and fragmentation of molecular clouds from models in 2001. Pre-JWST observations have shown that objects below 3-5 are unlikely to form on their own. Sometimes young iPMOs are still surrounded by a disk that could form exomoons. Due to the tight orbit of this type of exomoon around their host planet, they have a high chance of 10-15% to be transiting.
Disks.
Some very young star-forming regions, typically younger than 5 million years, sometimes contain isolated planetary-mass objects with infrared excess and signs of accretion. Most well known is the iPMO OTS 44 discovered to have a disk and being located in Chamaeleon I. Chamaeleon I and II have other candidate iPMOs with disks. Sigma Orionis cluster, Orion Nebula, NGC 1333 and IC 348. A large survey of disks around brown dwarfs and iPMOs with ALMA found that these disks are not massive enough to form earth-mass planets. There is still the possibility that the disks already have formed planets. Recent studies of the nearby planetary-mass object 2MASS J11151597+1937266 found that this nearby iPMO is surrounded by a disk. It shows signs of accretion from the disk and also infrared excess. In May 2025 researchers using JWST found that the disk around Cha 1107−7626 contains hydrocarbons. Cha 1107−7626 (6-10 ) is one of the lowest-mass objects with a dusty disk. Additional JWST spectroscopy did show that silicates and hydrocarbons are a common feature in disks of planetary-mass objects. The disks showed strong evidence of grain growth and crystallization, similar to what is seen in disks around brown dwarfs and stars. This showed that these disks are capable to form rocky companions.
Formation like a planet.
Ejected planets are predicted to be mostly low-mass (<30 Figure 1 Ma et al.) and their mean mass depends on the mass of their host star. Simulations by Ma et al. predicted that exomoons can be scattered by planet-planet interactions and become ejected exomoons. Higher mass (0.3-1 ) ejected FFP are predicted to be possible, but they are also predicted to be rare. Another suggested scenario is the ejection of planets in a tilted circumbinary orbit. Interactions with the central binary and the planets with each other can lead to the ejection of the lower-mass planet in the system. Although the effectiveness of this mechanism depends on the encounter geometry, which is not well constrained yet both observationally and theoretically
Formation via encounters between young circumstellar disks.
Encounters between young circumstellar disks, which are marginally gravitationally stable, can produce elongated tidal bridges that collapse locally to form iPMOs. These iPMOs host expansive disks similar to observations,
Other scenarios.
If a stellar or brown dwarf embryo experiences a halted accretion, it could remain low-mass enough to become a planetary-mass object. Such a halted accretion could occur if the embryo is ejected or if its circumstellar disk experiences photoevaporation near O-stars. Objects that formed via the ejected embryo scenario would have smaller or no disk and the fraction of binaries decreases for such objects. It could also be that free-floating planetary-mass objects form from a combination of scenarios.
Warmth.
Interstellar planets generate little heat and are not heated by a star. However, in 1998, David J. Stevenson theorized that some planet-sized objects adrift in interstellar space might sustain a thick atmosphere that would not freeze out. He proposed that these atmospheres would be preserved by the pressure-induced far-infrared radiation opacity of a thick hydrogen-containing atmosphere.
During planetary-system formation, several small protoplanetary bodies may be ejected from the system. An ejected body would receive less of the stellar-generated ultraviolet light that can strip away the lighter elements of its atmosphere. Even an Earth-sized body would have enough gravity to prevent the escape of the hydrogen and helium in its atmosphere. Around five percent of Earth-sized ejected planets with Moon-sized natural satellites would retain their satellites after ejection. A large satellite would be a source of significant geological tidal heating.
List.
The table below lists rogue planets, confirmed or suspected, that have been discovered. It is yet unknown whether these planets were ejected from orbiting a star or else formed on their own as sub-brown dwarfs. Whether exceptionally low-mass rogue planets (such as OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 and KMT-2019-BLG-2073) are even capable of being formed on their own is currently unknown.
Discovered via direct imaging.
These objects were discovered with the direct imaging method. Many were discovered in young star-clusters or stellar associations and a few old are known (such as WISE 0855−0714). List is sorted after discovery year.