Weird, enormous planets may be stolen from stars in ‘planetary

Strange planets nicknamed BEASTies are unlikely to have formed around their current stars. They may have been stolen from other stars or captured from deep space

Space 7 September 2025

By Leah Crane

Artist’s impression of a BEASTie. The image shows a gas giant planet (like Jupiter) on a distant orbit around a blue, massive star. The planet is likely to have been captured or stolen from another star. The background stars are members of the same star-forming region and could be the star the BEASTie was born around.

Artist’s impression of a gas giant on a distant orbit around a massive star

Mark Garlick

Giant stars stealing planets from smaller stars could explain why a strange trio of planets are in orbits that they shouldn’t be.

B-type stars are extremely hot stars more than three times as massive as the sun. Astronomers didn’t think they could host planets. Then, in late 2021 and early 2022, a survey called the B-star Exoplanet Abundance Study (BEAST) found three huge planets on wide orbits around B-type stars.

“These planets are where they’re not …