In message , Alexander Avtanski
writes
J.Barsuhn wrote:
Southern Hospitality wrote:

Quick question here that I've thought about in the past and always
assumed what the answer was but would like to hear some thoughts:

Do we know of any stars that exist outside of the influence of a
galaxy?
No. As far as I know, no intergalactic stars have been observed.

If so, which direction are they moving? Are they stars that once
existed within the influence of a galaxy or are there nebula/gas
clouds that are stellar nursury?
Star formation occurs in relatively dense clouds. The density of
intergalacric matter is far too low to allow star formation
All the best Jurgen

In principle, I think a star could be ejected from a galaxy after
being formed. A low mass star could (theoretically at least) go
in crazy trajectory after a close encounter with a much heavier
star. I don't know if this could happen in practice, though...

The other way that intergalactic stars could appear is if their galaxy
was torn apart, as is happening to the Magellanic Clouds near the Milky
Way, and such stars have actually been observed. Look at
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1997/02/,
for instance. Intergalactic stars have also been seen in the Fornax
cluster.
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