When this star blows, its planets will be turned into enormous pinballs

"This red giant stage spells doom for HR 8799's pirouetting planets, which will be scattered in all directions, dislodging material from nearby debris disks — disks of dust and rock that orbit stars — into the star's atmosphere. This type of debris is of special interest to astronomers, as it could offer insights into the histories of many other white dwarf systems."

The report extrapolates stellar evolution theory from a star and solar system said to be some 30 to 40 million years old, well into the future (red giant and white dwarf) :) My observation. HR 8799 is an intriguing solar system with 4 giant planets, much larger than Jupiter size. Masses reported range from 7 to 10 Jupiter masses for this solar system and host star listed some 1.56 to 1.61 solar masses. Explaining how the differences between HR 8799 solar system and our solar system arose is challenging.
 
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This is unusual. In fact, there are no other star systems that host large planets -- I used a minimum of 6 Earth masses -- that have four or even three of these large planets.

I also only found about 14 systems listed (of > 4,700 exoplanets) that have even two massive planets as stated above.

HR 8799 is a somewhat massive star, 1.56 solar masses by the exoplanet data. This should help in the formation of more massive planets, I assume.

Of course, we do know that cloud fragmentation can be messy, so that clumps would form at distances where these more distant exoplanets (in HR 8799) are found. This is why such a large percentage of star systems are at least binary.
 
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http://exoplanet.eu/, this site shows 4768 confirmed exoplanets. I used MS SQL query and found 68 multiple planet systems that range from 2 to 5 exoplanets and these have exoplanets >=1 Jupiter mass in those solar systems. An example is Kepler-58. Host star is 0.95 solar mass, 3 exoplanets with orbital periods 10 to 40 days and 2 show masses 1.39 and 2.19 Jupiter masses. Indeed, gas clouds making solar systems *can be messy*. Consider the messy process that allows folks to read this space.com report in the origin of our solar system :)
 
http://exoplanet.eu/, this site shows 4768 confirmed exoplanets. I used MS SQL query and found 68 multiple planet systems that range from 2 to 5 exoplanets and these have exoplanets >=1 Jupiter mass in those solar systems. An example is Kepler-58. Host star is 0.95 solar mass, 3 exoplanets with orbital periods 10 to 40 days and 2 show masses 1.39 and 2.19 Jupiter masses. Indeed, gas clouds making solar systems *can be messy*.
Yes, that is the site I use. [I simply use Excel and its functions to note which systems have whatever mass I chose to set as a minimum. You probably do the same.]

Consider the messy process that allows folks to read this space.com report in the origin of our solar system :)
What mess is that? Facts are facts, and models are models.

I wish I would have kept that StarDate magazine so I could reference it in regards to a math solution to more than just the 2-body solution. If what I read is true then the weaker modeling using iterations can be replaced by more accurate ones, no doubt.
 

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