Einstein’s Relativity May Explain the Scarcity of Planets Orbiting Binary Star Systems

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 05:42:00 +0200

Astronomers have long been puzzled by the surprising scarcity of planets that orbit two stars, known as circumbinary planets—similar to the fictional world of Tatooine in Star Wars. Although thousands of exoplanets have been discovered, and many stars exist in binary systems, only 14 confirmed planets have been found orbiting two suns, far fewer than the hundreds scientists expected based on formation rates and observational data from missions like Kepler and TESS.

A new study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the American University of Beirut suggests that Einstein’s theory of general relativity may play a crucial role in this discrepancy. In binary star systems, the two stars orbit each other while also slowly changing orientation through a process called precession. A planet orbiting both stars also undergoes orbital precession due to gravitational interactions. However, the study shows that relativistic effects accelerate the stars’ precession over ti