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This seems like an argument from ignorance as detection of exoplanets is very difficult compared to detection of stars (whether binary, the majority, or not.)
The way we do detect exoplanets would probably be hindered by binary star systems. Call it glare from the second sun? Masking the dips in brightness.
But hey maybe NGT will show up and give me a lecture.
Two bodies, rigid theory.
Three bodies, chaos theory.
You can thank the three body problem
… Two things can happen: Either the planet gets very, very close to the binary, suffering tidal disruption or being engulfed by one of the stars, or its orbit gets significantly perturbed by the binary to be eventually ejected from the system …
This could be described intuitively in my opinion as a repeated slingshot effect … the same way that would make so that tides on Earth push the Moon gradually further away while slowing down Earths’ rotation …
In these cases, would each star orbiter each other and the planet have an elliptical orbit around both them or would be other type of arrangements like the planet doing an eight shaped orbit between both stars?
At least intuitively it seems to me that 8-shaped paths would be extremely unlikely and unstable. Wikipedia describes two types of orbits:
So the planet can orbit both stars elliptically, or just one of them - but the latter can be the case only when the other star is a dwarf that can’t affect the planet too much.
I assume that, just like with a circular orbit, it could be theoretically possible to have some crazy figure-8 orbit around two stars, but that orbit would be so unstable you will in practice never find it in the real world.
What I mean is you could probably design some crazy solution to the three-body problem that in principle remains periodic, but which will completely dissolve at even a slight perturbation.
