IT IS not often that bullies are a good thing for youngsters in a nursery. But in the case of stellar nurseries, violent stars could actually aid the formation of planets rather than prevent it. It now seems as if ultraviolet light from massive stars might help dust around nearby ordinary stars condense into planetary seeds.
Most stars form in dense clusters such as the stellar nursery in the Orion nebula, 1500 light years away along the same spiral arm of the Milky Way as our sun. Many young stars in the nebula are surrounded by thick discs of gas…
