Astronomers report a tiny "failed star" possibly in the process of forming a solar system a hundredth the size of our own.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/051130_tinysolarfrm.htm

star system, not solar system
there is only one solar system

solar system
n.
(often Solar System) The Sun together with the nine planets and all other celestial bodies that orbit the Sun.
A system of planets or other bodies orbiting another star.

Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=solar%20system)

sol is our star
solar system - our system
that dict.com definition is illogical

star system, not solar system
there is only one solar system

how much does it really matter? (rhetorical question)

It doesn't matter at all, but semantic debates can be fun in their own way.

"Sol" is latin for "sun".
It's common usage that stars are suns.

fair enough,i just thought the actual subject might be a tad more interesting

It doesn't matter at all, but semantic debates can be fun in their own way.

"Sol" is latin for "sun".
It's common usage that stars are suns.

Then it is common usage in English language. But it's still illogical.

Yes, language is often illogical. Especially English.

fair enough,i just thought the actual subject might be a tad more interesting
It certainly is... but I have nothing to add. If it weren't for the semantic issue, I would have read the aricle with interest, then moved on.

Any large planet forms its own solar system--the chemical composition of Io, for instance--the innermost large moon of Jupiter--is almost identical to the sulpherous environment of Venus.

Hum,
i think what is important here is that Cha 110913-773444 is the smallest known brown dwarf.
The brown dwarf is young, only about 2 million years old, so it would be expected that there would have been a disk surrounding the star.
However, that disk may very soon break up (swallowed /expelled), before it has a chance to form planets.

http://static.flickr.com/18/68447518_536ab361f0_o.gif
^{GNIRS spectrum of the candidate young brown dwarf Cha 1109-7734 compared to spectra of the known young brown dwarf OTS 44 and the old cool dwarf LHS 2065 (M9V). Like the latter two objects, Cha 1109-7734 exhibits broad, deep absorption in H2O,demonstrating that it has a late spectral type. The weak K I and Na I absorption lines and the triangular shape of the continuum between1.5 and 1.8 µm in the spectrum of Cha 1109-7734 indicate a low surface gravity, and hence young age, like that of OTS 44. The spectra are displayed at a resolution of R = 200 and are normalized at 1.68 µm.}


On a similar note, researchers have recently discovered a Neptune-mass planet around the M dwarf star <b>Gliese 581</b> (<i>Spectral Type M3V, 0.31 solar masses</i>), using precise Doppler measurements with the HARPS spectrograph at the La Silla Observatory.
This star system lies only 20.4 light years away in the constellation libra.