A faraway planet intrigues
Two teams of astronomers have found a planet outside the solar system that might be orbiting backwards compared to its star’s rotation, a discovery that could shed light on how unique the relatively perfect alignment of our solar system is compared to that of other planetary systems.By measuring the rotation of the parent star of HAT-P-7b, a planet discovered in 2008, the two teams, including one led by MIT assistant professor of physics Joshua Winn and the other by Norio Narita at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, found that the orbit is tilted by at least 86 degrees with respect to the star’s equator. The drastic misalignment of the exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, suggests that it is either rotating over both poles of its star or actually rotating backwards, a phenomenon that does not occur in our solar system and that could help explain why life...