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A Planet That Orbits Its Star the Wrong Way
Smivs writes "BBC News is reporting that astronomers have discovered the first planet that orbits in the opposite direction to the spin of its star. Planets form out of the same swirling gas cloud that creates a star, so they are expected to orbit in the same direction that the star rotates. The new planet is thought to have been flung into its 'retrograde' orbit by a close encounter with either another planet or with a passing star. The work has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal for publication. Co-author Coel Hellier, from Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, said planets with retrograde orbits were thought to be rare. 'With everything [in the star system] swirling around the same way and the star spinning the same way, you have to do quite a lot to it to make it go in the opposite direction.' Professor Hellier said a near-collision was probably responsible for this planet's unusual orbit. 'If you have a near-collision, then you'll have a large gravitational slingshot from that interaction,' he explained. 'This is the likeliest explanation. But it might be possible you can do it by gradually perturbing the orbit through the influence of a second planet. So far, we haven't found any evidence of a second planet there.'"
You know, he has this thing about spinning planets the other way around...
Maybe the sun reversed its spin.
Doesn't everything rotate backwards if its from down under?
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you are shorter of breath and one day closer to death
British?
Do toilet flushes swirl in the opposite direction on this planet?
All the other planets keep pointing and saying "You're doing it wrong!"
Anybody want my mod points?
I remember when the first proof of an extra-solar planet was found, and people were amazed. Now we're only mildly fased by a planet whose orbit is probably one in a million.
Amazing how far astronomy has come in the last decade or so.
I wonder how long until we figure out a way to detect inhabited planets. Can't be too far off.
but wouldn't this type of retrograde orbit be possible if the planet had gone "rouge" from it's original system and was then captured in the gravity well of its current parent star?
Are we forgetting the Pauli Exclusion Principle? There must have been another planet in that orbit at some point causing the opposite spin since no 2 orbiting bodies can occupy the same quantum state unless they have opposite spins.
Might it not be an object captured by the star's gravity while it was passing by on the side opposite to the star's spin? I would say it's a lot more likely that a collision moved a planet out of its orbit entirely (as opposed to reversing it), and it was subsequently captured by a nearby star (where it happened to get captured counter-spinwise). On the other hand, nearby stars tend to be pretty damn far apart, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.
They determine the orbit by watching as the planet passes in front of the star. Somehow they determine which way the star spins and see the two are different. It doesn't matter if you see it from above or below.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
"...you can do it by gradually perturbing the orbit through the influence of a second planet" claims the article.
But, if it were to happen slowly, doesn't that imply that at some point it has a minimal orbital speed (if that's the correct term), and would fall right in? Seems to me that if it reversed direction, it must have been a relatively quick event. Unless, perhaps, the planet ends up being sent away from the star, and is then recaptured in a retrograde orbit. But, that's still not a "gradual perturbation."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Oooh ooh, it's called a DoppelgÃnger! And there are people there just like us.
Anti-spiral planet! ... Sorry.
From the summary, "...so they are expected to orbit in the same direction that the star rotates."
Yeah, well there's all kinds of surprises about the way things revolve. I say we name this planet the Australian Sink.
IIRC, our solar system was not original part of the Milky Way, but was from some smaller dwarf galaxy that got absorbed into it. There could have been a parallel here which might be easier to explain it.
God was drunk on the day he made that planet!!!
that this is the first planet found with such an orbit. Would it not require a lengthy sequence of "just right" nudges to produce that outcome? Statistically, wouldn't the second planet be just as likely to pull the first back toward an equatorial orbit on each encounter? Are the orbital mechanics such that retrograde planets coexisting with prograde planets is more stable than, say, having planets end up in polar or high inclination orbits?
Finally, the article explains how they can tell which direction the planet crosses the star, but how do you tell which way the star is rotating?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Well, in our solar system at least one planet is spinning the other way around: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_venus_spin_the_other_way It's not quite the same like orbiting into the opposite direction, but the Venus apparently received a nudge or two as well in order to spin the other way around. Such accidents appear to happen.
Well, if I would have a "close encounter" with a star passing, gas, I too would be made to go in the opposite direction. XD
planets with retrograde orbits were thought to be rare
Since this is the only one that's been found, I'd say that planets with retrograde orbits are still thought to be rare.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
You mean its an Australian planet, mate?
rewriting history since 2109
Why does everything different have to be labeled 'wrong'?
Have gnu, will travel.
Instead of spinning the "wrong" way, couldn't the planet just have a 180 degree axial tilt, sort of like Uranus has a pretty steep 97 degree tilt. At 180 degrees, it would be right sight up by a different perspective, but spinning the opposite direction as the star.
Morphing Software
the planet wasn't spawned by that particular star? Maybe it's a capture. I would imagine that a capture doesn't have to go with the spin, or against the spin - it could orbit from pole to pole.
Phhhht. I should have been an astronomer, huh?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Um, except for Venus, Uranus and Pluto anyway. If you count Pluto as a planet.
Maybe the current version could be used to simulate how this happened? :P
I used to play with that thing in the high school library far too much during library classes (hey, this was before schools had the internet).
It was always fun making the moon crash into earth.
This evokes that scene from "Trains Planes and Automobiles"......
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Couldn't it be a rogue planet that was captured into orbit due to it coming in at that direction?
I can't imagine something impacting a planet and making it reverse direction without turning it into dust. And I can't imagine the odds of something near-missing precisely right to cause a complete reversal in direction. I would think a rogue planet-like object getting captured traveling the opposite direction would be far more likely.
I know planets will can get kicked off their orbits from an impact and be launched out into the great emptiness, I recall reading a slashdot article on that many many moons ago....
Also, given the fact that we found this situation - considering the percentage of planets we have observed versus the amount of planets out there (which would be an extremely small percent), I would think it's likely that this is not an uncommon occurance.
(I am not a professional in anything other than database programming, but I do read up on astrophysics stuff for fun cause it's interesting. I'm sure I'm wrong in 87 different ways, feel free to let me know =)
But it might be possible you can do it by gradually perturbing the orbit through the influence of a second planet. So far, we haven't found any evidence of a second planet there.
Wouldn't a slowly perturbed planet fall into it's star once it reached stand still or near to it? Or maybe it was perturbed while way out far from the star, and then managed to reverse and miss the star as it fell towards it, and somehow got a near circular orbit again. I'd like to see what the path for a theoretical gradual perturbation and orbit reversal would look like.
It is probably not a planet. It is a Death Star. Lord Vader is near!
I'm not entirely sure how, but I know global warming is involved in some way.
... can't we send Superman to make it spin the other way to have normal time and not going back in time? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
*point laugh* Look it's failplanet!!!!
oogly boogly!
"This is your planet on drugs."
It's pretty obvious the planets backwards orbit is due to a drunk space bum playing pool with planets
Thanks for the laugh. That is one of my all-time favorite comedy scenes. I laugh every time I think of it.
I guess you still hold on to the belief that the Earth is flat too.
Aliens were bored on their planet, so they decided to make it unique.
... be named Quatermass and he say something memorable like "this planet, this orb, going the wrong way 'round, dooms us all as every planet in the universe will follow. It's only a matter of time before we plummet into the sun."
nm
Planet X???? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1852090586726362812
Did you feel that tremor? It was from millions of astrologist/astrology "practitioners" shuddering at the thought of a planet's permanent retrograde status!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
How do they know which way the star spins? Are they just assuming it is spinning in the same direction as its orbit around the galaxy? Why can't the entire system be retrograde?
I suppose since they can detect the direction the planet orbits, they can measure the blue shift and red shift of the advancing and receding sides of the spinning star, and know that way.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Another possibility is that the planet does not originate from the star it is orbiting. For example, the planet may have been in an unstable orbit around star 'A' and eventually escaped from star 'A' it traveled through space until it was caught in the gravitation of star 'B' and began to orbit. The orbit of the planet around star 'B' would be based more on the direction and angle it approached star 'B' as opposed to the spin of star 'B'
Just my theory.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
I suspect that the orbit was flipped over the top of the star (y axis) by a gravitational influence. The gravitational influence could have come from a neighboring star above the star's orbital plane. This would pull a planet above the plane, and with enough time, it may have flipped it to the opposite orbit.
How does this happen? TFA is an article about a planet that has retrograde motion and someone manages to whip out a car analogy. And it even sort of makes sense. Well played, sir. Well played.
No matter how much proof of intelligence and competence we send, the earthlings just don't get it.
In less than one day! http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17613-second-backwards-planet-found-a-day-after-the-first.html
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
Yup, a pretty silly statement when the observation was of the first one discovered.
Still a silly statement after the second one discovered, the very next day:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17613-second-backwards-planet-found-a-day-after-the-first.html
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This planet perhaps just came into existence and just didn't know. Just another newbie that didn't read the FAQ.
It's not going the wrong way... It's doing exactly what it should be doing in exactly the right way we just haven't found a logic reason for it.
Uranus, for those that spin the other way!
Ba dum tish
Unfortunately he corrected himself, it was a good delusion while it lasted.
They seem to be there in random layout with random structures however in our local Solar System everything is set just right in order for us to live.
Amazing, isn't it? I mean how humans can base their entire world-view around a circular argument? Have you ever considered the possibility that there might be/have been/will be at least a million other solar systems with similar but slightly different configurations? And that they all will spawn/might spawn/have spawned/might have spawned/are spawning life that might be similar to us but slightly different?
Have you ever considered the beauty that is biodiversity right here on this planet? How there is/has been/will be life on this planet that is so very different from us humans? Or in how many different ways life has found a way to sustain itself in configurations where we can not survive, like highly acidic, highly sulphuric, extremely wet, extremely hot? Your impicit assertion that this planet would be a barren rock if "we just couldn't exist" is insulting.
In my opinion, your statement that "our solar system is set right for us to live" conveys a sickening arrogance about our place on this planet. It is this kind of thinking that can justify the most horrid atrocities performed by humans at the expense of our planet: extermination of species, loss of habitat, destruction of entire ecosystems. Heck even genocide can be justified by your "it's ours" attitude.
Contrary to your viewpoint, I believe there is beauty all around us. If gravity were any stronger we couldn't survive because we would be crushed
No, we would either be stronger or not have existed at all.
the planets would fall into the Sun.
Yeah right. If that were true, how could they ever have spawned?
Many seemingly universal constants are so perfectly set that if any of them were off by a minuscule amount we just couldn't exist, the Universe couldn't exist.
... in its current configuration. And just so you know, the only "universal constants" that are immutable are metric conversion constants. Everything else is subject to change as our understanding of our universe expands.
Some people may view that as fragile but I consider it to be a work of art. The intricacies and the detail presented to us day or night from our view of the world is just simply tremendous
Yes, I happen to find Uluru and Niagara Falls to be works of art as well.
Water exists only on our planet (no direct evidence it exists anywhere else, especially right now, in the Universe) and it allows us to survive
Circular reasoning at work again, and factual inaccuracy as well. See sibling post.
Light, simple photons, also provides life for us.
No they don't. They only provide energy. Unless you are referring to some Vessel Of Light (look! I can arbitrarily capitalize too!), in which case your "life" does not mean the same as mine.
If the Sun were to stop shining right now we wouldn't know for 8 minutes. There are very few people who can comprehend that, let alone the immensity of the Universe. Will we ever comprehend everything there is to know about it?
I'm fairly certain we won't. Does that scare you?
As you say, we don't have a clue what all we're going to find out there but the laws we have discovered regarding chemistry and physics describe to amazing accuracy the Universe as we see it.
Yes they do, up to our current level of understanding. But physics laws are not discovered, they are hypothesized and subsequently debunked or tentatively accepted until they can be unambiguously proven. And even then they are not set in stone (bad pun intended).
We *have* been endowed by our Creator not only with certain unalienable rights but also the ability to recogniz
â¦would the water rotate in the bath drain?
One way would be to observe the red- or blue-shift of the star's spectral lines at the edges of the star. The part with the highest blue shift is coming toward you, the part with the highest red shift is moving away. Connect them with a line and you've got the plane in which the star rotates.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Just like when NASA sent pictures of 2 galaxies converging and keeping their spin, what happens if 2 solar systems converge, and even then, what happens if one is spinning one way and the other is spinning the opposite, technically that can't be good either for solar systems OR galaxies!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(moon)
triton goes the wrong way around neptune because it was captured from the planetoid kuiper belt junk around and beyond neptune, not formed there
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(moon)#Capture
hypothetically then, this new planet was captured by the star, but not from elsewhere in that star system of course, but from interstellar space
who knows what else is lying in the cold and the dark out there
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I propose we name this planet after Minnesota Vikings lineman Jim Marshall whose claim to fame was to score a safety for the other team because he ran the wrong way after picking up a fumble.
Prime candidate is molecular oxygen in an atmosphere which is highly unstable. But there are other chemical candidates too.
Yes - we've found Norstrilia.
"Planets form out of the same swirling gas cloud that creates a star" ... say they!
Err... Oh. Do they? How do you know that? When did someone observe all planets forming, to make this extremely certain statement? When has someone observed a single planet forming from start to finish?
How do you know that? Answer: Well, that is what our models say.
oh. So your model can only generate planets this way, I see. Perhaps they should say:
"Planets in our models form out of the same swirling gas cloud that creates a star" ... but then they have to end with the statement: "Having observed planets appearing to have not formed this way, we conclude that our model is a pile of crap." Oh, and please give us some more money.
Has anybody considered that maybe the planet itself did not originate from within the system who's star it is orbiting.
kill all niggers
Kill does not work like that. Try this: $ killall nigger
Ezekiel 23:20
Any more than a child sitting around and imagining the answers to all his questions is a "sibling discipline" to science.
Science is driven by observation and experimentation to learn the laws and functioning of the universe.
Theology is driven by imagining things and letting the things you imagine color all your observations and limiting your experimentation to get you into a state of willfull ignorance in accordance with the dogmas/doctrines.
I'm sure others have nicer theories about how this is not the case, but the proof is in the pudding on this one.
Perhaps this was once a binary star system. The planet was orbiting the *other* star. Something (???) happened to the other star and the planet was recaptured by the remaining star.
Just a thought.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
It's obviously populated with lots of politicians -- their combined spin is causing the inclination changes. Keep your eyes peeled because there's bound to be another backflip sometime soon.