Based on a research revealed within the Worldwide Journal of Astrobiology (opens in new tab), aliens may use rogue planets—wandering worlds which have both been knocked from the system they originated in like a snooker ball by some gravitational occasion, or had been fashioned externally—as alternate options to spacecraft.
The research comes from a professor of physics and astronomy at Houston Neighborhood Faculty named Irina Romanovskaya, who advised Motherboard (opens in new tab) that, since rogue planets are arduous to detect within the interstellar darkish between methods, there could also be a considerable variety of them on the market. “This will increase the possibility that some superior extraterrestrial civilizations, in the event that they exist, would possibly hitch a experience on free-floating planets,” Romanovskaya mentioned. “Which is why I name such hypothetical civilizations Cosmic Hitchhikers.”