Re: Evidence that the epistellar giants are gas planets
Hi Del,
I read an article about this, some time ago.
To be a rocky planet, that world needs to accumulate a huge amount of rocks at the height of its orbit around the star. And, if the orbit isn't very far from its star, there isn't enough matter to accumulate to produce a rocky world more than (theoretically) 5 times Earth's mass.
And even if the planet formation theories are wrong, huge planet can keep an atmosphere, even if they are very close to their sun; it has also been calculated.
Raoul