an interesting find

[mcolbert]

sorry if this has been posted elsewhere but I just noticed on the beeb;

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-34712877

michael

[ronin]

There was an observation made completely by accident some years ago that was determined to have been an unattached planet which by sheer chance passed in front of a star being observed.

Owing to the very small chance of this observation occuring the other conclusion was that ejected planets are not "uncommon" from a star/planetary system. I think it is said that when our planets rearranged themselves that it is an almost certainty that a Neptune sized planet was ejected from our solar system.

So it may therefore be a reasonable conclusion that every star has a planetary system and that each planetary system has (or will) eject a planet from it in order to achieve greater stability. Could a planetary system eject more then one?

[Paz]

That is interesting.

As well as being ejected from a star system is it possible for planets to just form on their own where a cloud of material has the right conditions to coalesce under gravity but is not massive enough to become a star?