General relativity helps explain the lack of planets around tight binary stars by driving orbital resonances that eject or destroy close-in worlds. This process naturally creates a “desert” of ...

This is a brilliant question because the notion of an orbit is counterintuitive. We know that massive objects (really, any objects with mass) gravitationally attract other massive objects; Newton's ...

Why is it so rare to find exoplanets orbiting two stars, also called circumbinary planets (CBPs)? This is what a recent study ...

Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars—even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth.

Learn why only 14 out of over 6,000 exoplanets orbit two stars, and how Einstein’s general theory of relativity may be to blame.

A step-by-step explanation for why planets that orbit a double star eventually enter an unstable orbit and disappear from the system. Of the more than 4,500 stars known to have planets, one puzzling ...

Astronomers have long wondered why planets orbiting two stars like the iconic Tatooine in Star Wars are so rare. You would expect them to be everywhere, really. Most stars form with planets, and a ...

New research suggests Einstein's general relativity explains the rarity of planets orbiting two suns. In tight binary systems, relativistic effects cause orbital resonances that destabilize planets, ...

When you see art of our solar system as the planet orbit the sun, you may notice that Earth's orbit has a tilt. It is not a perfect circle. What's more, Earth is not the only planet that displays such ...

Astronomers have uncovered a distant planetary system that flips a long-standing rule of planet formation on its head. Around the small red dwarf star LHS 1903, scientists expected to find rocky ...