Planet-hunting projects, such as NASA’s Kepler mission and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have found thousands of fascinating worlds orbiting other stars. However, the configuration of many of these other planetary systems has turned out to be very different to ours with much larger planets orbiting closer to their stars. In fact, our own Solar System, with small rocky inner planets and large gas and ice giants orbiting much further out, seems to be a very uncommon arrangement.

Advanced computer modelling has suggested that our system started out similar to the others but has subsequently been reorganised by the movement of Jupiter forcing all of the large planets outward whilst starving the inner Solar System of planet-making material. This is a possibility due to the huge size and mass of Jupiter in comparison with the other planets.