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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein

Rogue World  
  A celestial nomad, a planetary body that is not tied to a particular sun.  

A rogue, an aimless wanderer, creation's castaway; this world was all those things.

For uncounted centuries it had been falling, alone, without purpose, falling through the cold lonely places betweenthe suns. Generations of stars had succeeded each other in stately sweeps across its barren skies. It belonged to none of them. It was a world in and of itself, entire. In a sense it was not even part of the galaxy; its tumbling path cut through the galactic plane like a nail driven through a round wooden tabletop. It was part of nothing.

And nothing was very close at hand. In the dawn of human history, the rogue world pierced a curtain of interstellar dust that covered a trifling small area near the up-edge of the galaxy's great lens. A handful of stars lay beyond-thirty or so, a mere handful. Then emptiness, a night greater than any the wandering world had known.

Technovelgy from Dying of the Light, by George RR Martin.
Published by Baen in 1977
Additional resources -

The earliest use of the concept is probably When Worlds Collide, a 1932 novel by Edwin Balmer and Phillip Wylie (see the entry for wandering worlds). The first use of the term "rogue planet" for nomad worlds is probably in Poul Anderson's 1967 novel Satan's World (see the entry for rogue planet).

Another use of the idea occurs in the 1967 Star Trek: TOS episode "The Squire of Gothos" is set on a rogue planet.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dying of the Light
  More Ideas and Technology by George RR Martin
  Tech news articles related to Dying of the Light
  Tech news articles related to works by George RR Martin

Rogue World-related news articles:
  - Steppenwolf: Interstellar Rogue Planets May Support Life

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