If any storytelling device works in the Star Wars universe, you know it will come up again. The Death Star from 1977 was rebuilt in 1983 for Return of the Jedi. Then it came back again in 2015 for The Force Awakens. But a concept that appears even more often is the missing planet. Planets don't really go missing, but the maps that guide us to them tend to fail a lot in Star Wars. Obi-Wan found Kamino missing from the archives in Attack of the Clones. No one knew where Luke Skywalker was in The Force Awakens because a piece of the galactic map was missing. Missing mystery maps came up again in The Rise of Skywalker, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew.
But while Star Wars fans sigh and lament that the same plot device gets used too often, astronomers here on earth tell us that it happens all the time. Maps have gaps, and planets go missing frequently. How does that happen? In Star Wars, it's often deliberate, when someone does not want to be found. Find out why it happens in real life from those who try to map the stars, at Inverse.