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 ...

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.

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 ...