Gentle or Jumping? The Varied Lives of Hot Jupiters

By Ken Croswell

Published on ScientificAmerican.com (April 1, 2013)

Gentle Jupiter: If our solar system had been born with more iron, Jupiter might have kicked Earth into the Sun. Credit: Voyager 2. NASA/JPL/U.S. Geological Survey.

Ever since Swiss astronomers astonished the world by finding a gas giant planet orbiting close to its star, researchers have wondered how these so-called hot Jupiters arose. None exists in our solar system, where the planetary giants—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—reside in the deep freeze beyond the asteroid belt. Now a surprising discovery is providing fresh insight, suggesting that the more iron a star was born with, the more likely it is that the star’s hot Jupiter had a violent past.

Read more at Scientific American.

Ken Croswell earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University and is the author of The Alchemy of the Heavens and The Lives of Stars.

"An engaging account of the continuing discovery of our Galaxy...wonderful." --Owen Gingerich, The New York Times Book Review. See all reviews of The Alchemy of the Heavens here.

"A stellar picture of what we know or guess about those distant lights."--Kirkus. See all reviews of The Lives of Stars here.

KenCroswell.com

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