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Study Reveals Why Planets Struggle Around Binary Stars

2/17/2026

Summary

Story summary

A December 8, 2025 study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters finds that general relativity may explain the scarcity of planets around binary stars.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the American University of Beirut report that 75% of circumbinary planets may be destroyed by gravitational interactions.
Among over 6,000 confirmed exoplanets, only 14 orbit two stars, suggesting unstable orbits are ejected or torn apart, creating a circumbinary desert.

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Story summary

A December 8, 2025 study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters finds that general relativity may explain the scarcity of planets around binary stars.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the American University of Beirut report that 75% of circumbinary planets may be destroyed by gravitational interactions.
Among over 6,000 confirmed exoplanets, only 14 orbit two stars, suggesting unstable orbits are ejected or torn apart, creating a circumbinary desert.