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Space
Space
Science
Keith Cooper

A tiny star gave birth to a giant exoplanet, but no one knows how

A red orb in front of a pale blue one.

Like a family in which short parents have tall children, a tiny red dwarf star is defying our understanding of how planets form by existing alongside a giant exoplanet.

Giant planets are not rare per se — after all, we have four in our own solar system. Such large worlds are, however, rarely found around the smallest stars, red dwarfs. Red dwarfs simply shouldn't have enough material to form such huge worlds.

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