Sun-like Stars May Have Low Probability of Forming Planets

Sun-like Stars May Have Low Probability of Forming Planets
Written by Nancy Atkinson

The Orion Nebula shines brilliantly, as it is packed with over 1,000 young stars in a region just a few light-years wide. With all those stars, there's probably the potential for thousands of planets to one day form from the dust and gas surrounding these stars, right? Actually, according to a new study, fewer than 10 percent of stars in the Orion Nebula have enough surrounding dust to make a planet the size of Jupiter. And that doesn't bode well for the planet-forming abilities of most stars, at least in forming planets the size of Jupiter or larger. 'We think that most stars in the galaxy are formed in dense, Orion-like regions, so this implies that systems like ours may be the exception rather than the rule,' said Joshua Eisner lead author of the study from the University of California Berkeley. This finding is also consistent with the results of current planet searches, which are finding that only about 6 percent of stars surveyed have planets the size of Jupiter or larger."
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BHT doesn't mean to be on a kick of some kind but we see a trend developing.