GIANT planets can form around a newborn star in just a few hundred years, say astronomers who have modelled the process.
Conventional theory says planets form when dust and ice particles in the disc around a young star stick together, gradually forming lumps with gravity strong enough to attract more material. That takes millions of years, which is fine for terrestrial planets but too slow to explain how outer gas giants form, as radiation from neighbouring stars would blow any gas away long before clumps grew big enough to collect more.
In 1998, Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of…
