Twenty-four years ago, Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first planet orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system – a milestone recognised by this year’s Nobel prize in physics. Today we know of thousands more ‘exoplanets’, and researchers are now trying to understand when and how they form.
The known exoplanets are certainly an eclectic bunch. They range in size from small rocky planets, like Earth, to gas giants that are many times bigger than Jupiter.
Some have meandering orbits, whereas others orbit not one star but two. Some have the modest mass and temperatures that are thought necessary to support life, while some are hellish balls of heat and crushing gravity. Some exoplanets appear to orbit their stars alone, while others orbit along with several other planets, like Earth in our solar system.
The vast majority of those we’ve discovered so far, however, are Earth- to Jupiter-sized planets that orbit very close to their host stars – often closer than Mercury orbits the sun. Astronomers are trying to understand how these close-orbiting planets came into existence by studying examples in different – preferably early – stages of formation. […]
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