Few if any astronomers expected the sheer diversity of planets beyond our solar system. The most extreme systems are those that orbit neutron stars, white dwarfs and brown dwarfs. Neutron stars are born in supernova explosions, and planets orbiting them probably congealed from the debris. The bodies orbiting white dwarfs are the hardy survivors of the demise of a sunlike star. And brown dwarfs, themselves barely more massive than planets, nonetheless appear to be sites of planet formation.
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