| Astronomers haven't yet directly spotted any protoplanets around HD 142527, but they keep looking. |
| This is because the star is surrounded by a cloud of dust from which planets form that masks the gravitational effects of the protoplanets. |
| Or it could be that having an extra star would be disruptive, and its gravity could cause any protoplanets to pull apart. |
| It involves devastating collisions with other small protoplanets, as well as with a multitude of showering, tumbling worldlets. |
| These streamers are almost certainly guided and shaped by protoplanets embedded within them, Casassus says. |
| The dust needed help coming together fast, in kilometer-wide protoplanets, in the first few million years after a star was born, or the stellar wind would blow it all away. |
