Jupiter-sized planets are very rare around the least massive stars

If you’re looking to visit a gas giant planet in another solar system — or if you’re simply a science fiction writer who needs such a world for your story — you’d better steer clear of little red stars.

A search for planets like Jupiter around low-mass red dwarf stars came up empty, researchers report in the July Astronomical Journal. “Around 200 stars, we did not detect a single one of these planets,” says Emily Pass, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.