Look for Debris Disks tagged posts

This artist’s rendering shows a large exoplanet causing small bodies to collide in a disk of dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

There’s no map showing all the billions of exoplanets hiding in our galaxy – they’re so distant and faint compared to their stars, it’s hard to find them. Now, astronomers hunting for new worlds have established a possible signpost for giant exoplanets. A new study finds that giant exoplanets that orbit far from their stars are more likely to be found around young stars that have a disk of dust and debris than those without disks. The study, published in The Astronomical Journal, focused on planets more than five times the mass of Jupiter...