© Mark Garlick / Science Photo Libraryoughly 4.6 billion years ago the Sun was
born from the collapse of a nebula – a
giant cloud of gas and dust. Since then
planets, moons, asteroids, comets and
other debris have formed to give rise to the Solar
System. In another 5 billion years the Sun will begin
its transition into a red giant star, swelling up due to
the lack of internal fuel to power nuclear fusion.
Just by looking at the sky you can see that our
Solar System has the ideal conditions for planet
formation, but what about more extreme conditions?
What about the stars that aren’t a G2V-type, Sun-like
star? What about the stars that haven’t been able to
make it, or have evolved to the concluding phases
of their lives? These questions are a hotly studied
R
Phantom worlds