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Why wide Jupiter-mass binary objects cannot form

Nature Astronomy volume 9, pages 957–959 (2025)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 19 April 2024

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arising from Y Wang et al. Nature Astronomy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02239-2 (2024)

The discovery of Npp = 40 Jupiter-mass binary objects (JuMBOs, here Npp stands for the number of planet-planet binaries) alongside Np = 500 free-floating Jupiter-mass objects (JMOs, Np gives the number of single free floating planets) in the Trapezium cluster’s central portion raises questions about their origin1. Wang et al.2 argue that the rate at which two planets orbiting the same star are stripped by a close encounter can explain approximately half of the observed JuMBOs in the Trapezium cluster. Although their cross-section calculations agree with our own3, one cannot extrapolate their results to clustered environments because this ignores the dissociation of JuMBOs due to subsequent encounters in the clustered environment. The proposed scenario cannot account for wide-orbit free-floating planet pairs due to overestimated formation and underestimated disruption rates. In the absence of another efficient mechanism, we question the existence of JuMBOs and consider independent confirmation of the observations essential.

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Fig. 1: JuMBO population at an age of 1 Myr.
Fig. 2: JMO population at an age of 1 Myr.

Data availability

Data related to the simulations in this manuscript can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10149241 (ref. 15).

Code availability

The code for this manuscript is available from GitHub (https://github.com/amusecode/Starlab), the Astrophysics Multipurpose Software Environment (http://amusecode.org) and GitLab (https://gitlab.strw.leidenuniv.nl/spz/jumboformation; specific script for reproducing the runs).

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. McCaughrean, A. L. Varri, A. Brown, M. Kenworthy and R. Perna for discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Simon Portegies Zwart & Erwan Hochart

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  1. Simon Portegies Zwart
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  2. Erwan Hochart
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Contributions

S.P.Z. and E.H. initiated the topic and discussed the science. S.P.Z. wrote the run scripts, performed the simulations, analysed the data, wrote the first version of the manuscript and dealt with the refereeing and editorial contacts. E.H. checked the run scripts, performed independent validation runs and wrote the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Simon Portegies Zwart.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Astronomy thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary notes, Software, Data and References.

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Portegies Zwart, S., Hochart, E. Why wide Jupiter-mass binary objects cannot form. Nat Astron 9, 957–959 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02609-4

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