In just two decades, we have gone from knowing one planetary system (our own) to thousands, with 3,268 exoplanets now known. Many of which have had very irregular orbits that position themselves too close to the stars.
At a distant star called Kepler-223, four gas giant planets orbit close in to their sun. It couldn’t be more different from our own solar system today, where all the big planets hang out far away. But could Kepler-223 be how our solar system was long ago?
The hypothetical ninth planet at the fringes of our solar system might have been captured from a star passing by long ago
NASA planet hunter says: “I’m absolutely confident they’re out there.”
“As the planet gets closer to the star, it feels a burst of starlight, or radiation. The atmosphere becomes a cauldron of chemical reactions, and the winds ramp up far beyond hurricane force,”
