In a recent blog post, Julian Gough argues not only that planets without stars (“Stanets”) may harbor life, but that most of the life in our universe exists without stars.
Two recent observations make this plausible. The first is that many of the moons of the outer solar system have liquid water due to tidal forces. Previously, it was thought that for liquid water, a moon or planet has to be in a Goldilocks zone around a star. The second is that there are many, many planets that don’t orbit a star. Taken together, these observations mean that a lot of the liquid water out there, and maybe a lot of life, exists on planets without stars.
Nehaveigur 