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From: "Robert L. Oldershaw" <rlolders...@amherst.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.fractals
Subject: 160 Billion Planets + 200 Billion Planets = Lots
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:01:00 -0800 (PST)
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At the Texas Meeting of the AAS this month it was announced that:

1. Nearly every star has one or more planets. Exoplanets/stars ~ 1.6/1

2. Double-star exoplanet systems appear to be not all that rare.

3. Ditto for pulsar-planet systems.

4. Exoplanet systems continue to defy pre-discovery predictions. Big
Time.

Given a minimum of 160 billion bound planets, and given a minimum of
200 billion unbound planetary-mass objects, is the capture of
planetary-mass objects by stellar-mass objects to form exoplanet
systems so unthinkable?

This process, of course, would primarily take place within relatively
dense star-forming regions, so the process is not easy to observe
directly, but the commonality of high-energy jet phenomenology also
taking place within star-forming regions is certainly suggestive.

One safe bet is that the surprises have only just begun.

Robert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
Discrete Fractal Cosmology