Thirty years ago, on a crisp October day in 1995, two Swiss astronomers changed the course of cosmic history. Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, working at the University of Geneva, announced the discovery of 51 Pegasi b – the first planet found orbiting a Sun-like star beyond our solar system. It was a startling revelation: not only did it confirm that other worlds existed, but it also shattered long-held assumptions about how planets formed.

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51 Pegasi b was no Earth-like paradise. It was a “hot Jupiter” – a massive gas giant orbiting so close to its star that a year lasted just 4.2 days. To astronomers of the 1990s, this made no sense. According to classical models, gas giants should form far from their stars, like Jupiter and Saturn in our

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