From Dynamics of Cats, a great article on what happens to planets as a star leaves the main sequences and shrinks to a white dwarf:
if the mass loss is sudden, “impulsive”, the planet generally goes onto an eccentric orbit, possibly hyperbolic for mass loss of ~50% or more, depending on the original eccentricity of the orbit and where the planet is along the orbit. This scenario was considered by Blaauw in 1961 and is often referred to as a “Blaauw kick”.
Under the right conditions, planets orbiting large stars could eventually break free of their shrinking primary. Hard to know how often that happens. but there are a lot of large stars and our understanding of exo solar systems via Kepler and ground based work indicates planets are common. Over time that could lead to a galaxy with no small number of rogue worlds drifting quietly through interstellar space. I wonder what they might be like?
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Pierce R. Butler
August 8, 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Dark.
Cold.
katiekins
August 9, 2011 at 2:48 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Personally, I like to think they’re full of pies. And good booze.
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April 19, 2012 at 7:28 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
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