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As we discover more worlds orbiting distant stars, we are finding that "conventional thinking" doesn't seem to apply to the growing menagerie of exoplanets. And this most recent exoplanetary discovery is no different. In fact, the two exoplanets found to be orbiting a star 375 light-years away shouldn't exist at all. The two gas giant planets were spotted during a survey of "metal poor" stars. When focusing on a star called HIP 11952, researchers from the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, discovered a slight wobble in the star's position. The wobble is being caused by the gravitational tug...

German astronomers have discovered an ancient planetary system thought to be a survivor of one of the earliest cosmic eras, from 13 billion years ago. The system consists of the star HIP 11952 and two planets. Such an old system will help shed light on planet formation in the early Universe, which occurred under conditions quite different from those of later planetary systems such as our own. Accepted planetary theory states that, generally speaking, a star that contains more 'metals', (i.e. chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium) is more likely to have planets; it is also widely accepted that...