Of greater interest to us is the millions of wandering planets not bound by orbiting suns
These true to life moon-base alphas may be our ticket to the stars
There are also millions of darkish Jupiter sized wanderers with moons ( a source of energy )
We haven't seen many of the above because they are so faint , but between here and Alpha Centuri there may be dozens if not hundreds of lone bodies and micro systems.
Think of playing a kind of cosmic frogger , all these billiard balls swirling around, every now and then they make a close pass , perhaps never again passing each other due to large differences in velocities.
Remember only the planets in our solar system have steady orbits, motion is a lot more chaotic in the milkway, its more like a very loosely bound asteroid belt. So there there is a great deal of wandering going on.
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For every star you can see with the naked eye , there are probably a dozen dark stars and wandering planets at the same distances and directions. These are interstellar greyhound coaches , being lighter in mass than giant stars it is they that get flung around in a chaotic manner. Note the stars are all moving too, constellations temporary illusions.
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Its best to think of the galaxy as a tornado, yes general trends of motion but individual systems especially rogue planets and rogue dark stars dancing around in a cosmic furball
as i write , we are also colliding with several smaller galaxies , some coming in for additional smash n grab raids so there is a great deal of turbulance and commotion. This makes colonizing the galaxy very easy indeed.....as a great deal of the galaxy will come flying past your window sooner or later !
we better get good at star hopping , cos we will collided with Andromeda in the not to distant future, the milky way will be ripped to shreds , 50:50 chance earth will be flung off into deep, and i mean deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep space with fak all around for millions of light years !
If there is life in andromeda we are going to meet each other whether we want to or not , lol