A huge alien planet discovered in a system with two suns akin to the fictional "Star Wars" world of Tatooine is forcing astronomers to rethink their theories about how gas giant planets form.
The two stars are close enough together that the leading theory for planet formation — that dust and gas circling the stars slowly accrete into such planets' rocky cores — isn't likely, researchers said. The stars' gravity would disrupt this process long before it could get very far, they added.
Instead, the new findings support an alternative theory, called gravitational collapse, which holds that super-dense regions of the dust cloud form planets much more rapidly, pulling together via the force of their own gravity.
Link: 'Star Wars' Planet with 2 Suns Challenges Theories
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