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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Giant stars turn to theft to snag jumbo planets

Jupiter-sized planets orbiting massive stars were probably stolen from other stars or captured from somewhere else.
An artist’s impression of a gas giant planet on a distant orbit around a blue star

Keeping its distance: a gas-giant exoplanet follows an orbit far from its massive star (artist’s illustration). Credit: Mark Garlick

Planets orbiting their stars at a great distance might be adoptees from other stars rather than home-grown1.

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Nature 609, 657 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02909-z

References

  1. Parker, R. J. & Daffern-Powell, E. C. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Sci. 516, L91–L95 (2022).

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