Planet Absorption by a Gas Giant

Abstract

There is mounting evidence of many extra-solar planetary systems in our galaxy, consisting typically of a Sun-like star and Jupiter-like planets on highly elliptic orbits. These systems are characterised by a dearth of smaller Earth-like planets. The present paper describes the swallowing-up of a small rock dwarf by a large gas giant, and shows that this behaviour is as predicted by the collinearity principle.