THE FORMATION OF SUBSTELLAR OBJECTS INDUCED BY THE COLLISION OF PROTOSTELLAR DISKS

Simulations of a close encounter between two protostars, each surround ed by a relatively massive disk, resulted in the ejection of some of t he disk material into a tidal tail. A portion of the tail condensed in to an object with a mass in the range of 5 to 10 jovian masses. This m echanism may explain the existence of the single objects of substellar mass that have recently been discovered.