Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Astronomers Find a Sub-Neptune Orbiting Completely Backward Around a Red Dwarf

universetoday.com · 3hShare

In our own solar system, all eight planets orbit our Sun in a nice, orderly fashion. None are more than 7° or so out of alignment with the equator, and all of them rotate in the same direction as the Sun itself. But that’s not the case for all solar systems, and a new paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics from a team of researchers led by Yann Carteret, a PhD student at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), describes the first time we’ve ever found an exoplanet orbiting the opposite direction of its red dwarf parent star - and it has major implications for our understanding of planet formation theory.

First report: Astronomers Found a Planet Orbiting Backwards Around a Red Dwarf and the Usual Culprit Is Missing — zmescience.com, 1d