Stars could steal planets as they form Mopic/Alamy
The universe is a dangerous place. A new analysis has revealed that stars can frequently steal planets from each other in high-speed fly-bys – something that may even have happened in our own solar system.
Our understanding of how planets form was developed by looking out at our own cosmic neighbourhood, but these explanations can’t account for some of the other star systems we have discovered, such as Jupiter-like planets orbiting extremely close to low-mass stars.
“There are a number of different observations that suggest that there is more going on than…
