Giant Stars Can't Have Planets....Or Can They?

Nasa's Spitze Space Telescope recently has found two huge "hypergiant" stars with what looks like planetary dust disks (dust from previous or future planets) circling them. Until now it was thought that stars this massive could not be a host to planets. These stars are tremendously hot, have very strong solar winds, and are very bright; these conditions make it very difficult for a planet to form.
The massive stars that these planetary dust disks were found are located in a galaxy close to our own, the Large Magellanic Cloud. These stars are called hypergiants and have a size of about 30 to 70 times the mass of our sun. The disks are very wide also, the farthest orbit of the disk is 60 times more distant then Pluto's orbit to the sun. These disks are estimated to have about 10 times as much mass as that of the Kuiper Belt. They also say that there may be much smaller companion stars located inside these disks.
The two massive hypergiant stars that these disks were found circling around are supernovae, that means they have very short life spans and leave with a bang. So if any planet could be formed in these disks they would soon be distroyed by the stars giant explotion or bang.
It should be interesting to observe these stars and see what happens.

For more information go to:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/spitzer-20060208.html
or click on the picture above.