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News Release 11-094

Why Some Planets Orbit the Wrong Way; Extrasolar Insights Into Our Solar System

NSF-funded research in physics and astronomy yields unexpected results

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the transiting planet orbiting its nearby star in an opposite direction.

A retrograde hot Jupiter: the transiting giant planet orbits very close to the star and in a direction opposite to the stellar rotation. This peculiar configuration results from gravitational perturbations by another much more distant planet (upper left).

Credit: Lynette Cook


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