[ExI] Planets galore!

[BillK]

Nomadic Planets May Swarm the Galaxy
<http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.2687>
<http://kipac.stanford.edu/collab/research/highlights/tidbits2012/nomads>

We estimate that there may be up to ~10^5 compact objects in the mass
range 10^{-8} -10^{-2} solar mass per main sequence star that are
unbound to a host star in the Galaxy. We refer to these objects as
nomads; in the literature a subset of these are sometimes called
free-floating or rogue planets. Our estimate for the number of
Galactic nomads is consistent with a smooth extrapolation of the mass
function of unbound objects above the Jupiter-mass scale, the stellar
mass density limit, and the metallicity of the interstellar medium.

Complete pdf file
<http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2687>

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Can there really be up to 100,000 wandering planets for *every* star?
That's a mind-boggling big number of planets.


BillK