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Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

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Why Planets with Two Suns Almost Never Survive?

For decades, science fiction has fascinated us with planets that rise under two suns. The most famous example is Tatooine from Star Wars—a desert world orbiting a pair of stars. Such planets are called circumbinary planets, meaning they travel around two stars instead of one.

But in real life, these worlds are surprisingly scarce.

Astronomers have confirmed more than 6,000 exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system. Yet only 14 are known to orbit binary stars, even though binary star systems are just as common as single stars. This puzzling shortage has left scientists wondering: Where are all the Tatooine-like planets?

Now, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the American University of Beirut believe they have found the answer. And the explanation comes from an unexpected place—Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

A Universe Full of Planets—But Not Around Double Stars

Modern space missions like NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) have revolutionized planet hunting. They detect planets by observing tiny dips in starlight when a planet passes in front of its star.

Using this method, astronomers discovered that nearly one in ten single stars hosts large planets. Since many stars form in pairs, scientists expected to find hundreds of circumbinary planets.

Instead, they found almost none.

Even more striking is this: among thousands of binary stars studied, none of the confirmed circumbinary planets orbit “tight” binaries—pairs of stars that circle each other in less than about seven days.

This empty region has been called “an absolute desert.”

Why Binary Systems Are Hostile to Planets

Binary stars usually orbit each other in slightly stretched, egg-shaped paths called elliptical orbits. If a planet circles both stars, it feels strong and constantly changing gravitational pulls from each one.

These competing forces cause the planet’s orbit to precess—a slow rotation of its orbital direction, similar to how a spinning top wobbles as it slows down.

But the stars themselves also precess.

Here’s where things get interesting.

Einstein Steps In: The Role of General Relativity

Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, proposed in 1915, describes gravity not as a simple pulling force but as a curving of space and time caused by massive objects.

A famous example is Mercury. Its orbit shifts slightly more than Newton’s laws predict, and Einstein’s theory explains why.

The same effect happens in tight binary stars.

As two stars orbit closely, relativistic effects make their orbital orientation slowly rotate. Over millions or billions of years, tidal forces also cause the stars to creep closer together. As this happens, the stars’ precession speeds up.

Meanwhile, the planet’s precession—caused mainly by ordinary gravity—slows down.

Eventually, both rates match.

This creates a dangerous condition called resonance.

Resonance: A Planetary Death Trap

When the precession of the planet and the binary stars fall into sync, the planet’s orbit becomes unstable. Its path stretches more and more, turning highly elongated.

This means the planet swings extremely close to the stars at one point and very far away at another.

According to Mohammad Farhat, lead author of the study, two outcomes are likely:

  • The planet moves too close and is torn apart or swallowed by one of the stars.

  • Or it is flung completely out of the system into interstellar space.

“In both cases,” Farhat explains, “you lose the planet.”

Their calculations show that about 80% of planets around tight binaries are disrupted, and three-quarters of those are destroyed outright.

This violent process happens relatively quickly—within tens of millions of years—while stars live for billions. So by the time astronomers look, most close-in circumbinary planets are already gone.

The Instability Zone: Where Planets Can’t Survive

Binary stars also have a natural instability zone—a region where gravitational chaos makes it impossible for planets to maintain stable orbits.

Curiously, nearly all known circumbinary planets sit just outside this danger zone.

Scientists believe these planets formed farther away and slowly migrated inward.

But forming a planet right at the edge of instability would be extremely difficult.

Farhat compares it to “trying to stick snowflakes together in a hurricane.”

Are There More Tatooine Worlds Out There?

Yes—almost certainly.

The researchers stress that binary stars probably do have planets. But the survivors are pushed so far from their stars that current detection methods struggle to find them.

Kepler and TESS rely on planetary transits, which are much harder to observe when planets orbit far away.

“There are surely planets out there,” says co-author Jihad Touma. “They’re just difficult to detect with current instruments.”

In other words, Tatooine-like worlds may exist—but they are likely distant, cold, and hidden from our view.

A Bigger Picture: Relativity Shapes Planetary Systems

This discovery highlights how deeply Einstein’s theory influences the universe.

General relativity doesn’t just affect black holes or cosmic explosions—it quietly shapes ordinary star systems, deciding whether planets live or die.

Interestingly, similar relativistic effects may also explain the scarcity of planets around binary pulsars (pairs of dense neutron stars) and could influence star clusters around supermassive black holes.

Touma notes that while relativity can stabilize some systems—like Mercury’s orbit—it can also destroy others.

“General relativity is stabilizing systems in some ways and disturbing them in other ways,” he says.

Conclusion: Why Two Suns Are Rare

The dream of standing on a planet with twin sunsets remains mostly in science fiction—for now.

Nature makes binary stars easily, and planets form readily. But when both exist together, Einstein’s subtle rules of spacetime often intervene. Resonance, orbital stretching, and gravitational chaos combine to erase most close-in circumbinary planets long before we can see them.

So the reason Tatooine planets are rare isn’t because they can’t form.

It’s because the universe quietly removes them.

Einstein, it turns out, is the unseen architect behind this cosmic cleanup.

Reference: Mohammad Farhat et al, Capture into Apsidal Resonance and the Decimation of Planets around Inspiraling Binaries, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2025). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae21d8

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