Exoplanetary systems
Friday, January 7, 2011 - 11:50
in Astronomy & Space
(PhysOrg.com) -- There are now about fifty stars known with more than one orbiting planet - they are the exoplanetary equivalents of the solar system. These stellar families are critical to astronomers piecing together the origin and evolution of the Earth because, among other things, they shed new light on the stability of multiple-planet systems and how the planets interact with each other.