Astronomers don't have to work hard to find binary stars in the Milky Way. They're common, even abundant. For a long time, they thought that these stars are unlikely to host exoplanets. The complex gravitational environment made things so chaotic, so the thinking went, that the planet formation process is disrupted. The competing gravitational pulls from both stars wreak havoc on the protoplanetary disc, warping it or even destroying it. This can prevent gas and dust from clumping together. When rare planetesimals do form in these systems, they're prone to gravitational kicks that can eject them into interstellar space. However, in recent years, astronomers have detected several dozen circumbinary exoplanets. How does the planet formation process play out in these environments, and what type of planets are likely to form there? *This artist's illustration shows Kepler-16b, the first confirmed exoplanet in a circumbinary disk.…