Astronomers find homeless planet...

[MoonCat]

Oh, so that's where I left it...



http://phys.org/news/2012-11-astrono...net-space.html

[telecom_goddess]

Whoa....I had no idea there could be wandering planets. What keeps it from hitting other bodies in the sky or being sucked into another's gravity pull?

[dalesys]

Whoa....I had no idea there could be wandering planets. What keeps it from hitting other bodies in the sky or being sucked into another's gravity pull?

Very very long distances + unless it gravitationally interacts with a third body (or collides), it'll just whip into a stellar system, do a quick do-si-do, and leave, never to be seen again.

[Lachrymose]

I had no idea there could be wandering planets.

What's funny is "planet" literally means "wandering". (Although that was because the ancient Greeks thought of planets as stars that wander.)

[Aethian]

I wonder if anything lives on it...

[MoonCat]

I wonder if anything lives on it...

I think it's where all the lost socks go....

[lordlundar]

Very very long distances + unless it gravitationally interacts with a third body (or collides), it'll just whip into a stellar system, do a quick do-si-do, and leave, never to be seen again.

Pretty much. Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces, but it has the furthest reach. Eventually (it might have already happened for all we know) the planet will either get into a stable orbit or collide with something else but at current it's just too far away from anything substantial for gravity to be a factor.