The astrophysicist thinks the planet seen by Hubble formed about as far away from one of the stars as the gas giant planets in our solar system, which are about one-half to 1 billion miles away from the Sun. As the young planet orbited around one of the stars, the second star disturbed the planet's orbit, and the planet came a little too close to one of them. The planet picked up energy from the two stars and got catapulted out of the system. Perhaps these civilizations weren't far off the mark. The planet seen by Hubble is destined to be a wandering nomad in space.
Boss wonders how many other nomadic planets there are in the rich, star-forming region of Taurus.
He guesses that for many binary stars in the constellation, a gas giant planet or two could have been kicked out of their homes, destined to roam space alone. This is just one possibility that astronomers will look for when they begin to do the follow-up observations on this major discovery. The wandering nature of the gas giant in Taurus also reinforces the idea that some gas giants migrate. The planet in the Hubble image traveled out of its star system, but earlier detections of extrasolar planets pinpointed gas giants that apparently moved closer to their stars, because of gravitational interactions between the planet and the disk or with other planets in the system. A lone planet on the fast track to maturity.