All the planets in the Solar System have orbits that are not perpendicular to the axis of spin of our luminary. Previously, scientists did not know how typical this situation was. However, new research shows that this state of affairs is normal for other stars.
“Tilted” hot Jupiter
A group of astronomers led by Malena Rice from Yale University conducted a study that refuted the view that our Solar System was unique in terms of the tilt of the planets’ orbits, which were part of it.
The study is part of the Stellar Obliquities in Long-period Exoplanet Systems (SOLES) survey, which aims to establish how planets form in other stars. Scientists have studied the planet TOI-2202 b, which is a “hot Jupiter” and orbits its luminary in just 12 Earth days.
Scientists have discovered that this planet has a significant tilt in its orbit relative to the rotation axis of its star. This seemed extremely unusual to them and prompted them to explore other worlds that were contained in the NASA catalog. There are more than 5,500 of them in total.
Tilt of the orbits in the Solar System is normal
Each star rotates on its own axis.Planets orbit their stars in orbits that also have axes. It would be logical to assume that the planes of the equator of the star and the orbits of the planets should coincide. However, this is not the case in the Solar System.
All planets orbiting the Sun have orbits that are not perpendicular to the axis of its rotation. Scientists still did not know why this was the case because there was no definite information about how true this was for other worlds. Therefore, there was an opinion that our situation was unique.
However, it turned out that this was not the case. The inclination of the orbits of many planets, including hot Jupiters, turned out to be much more than 20°. At the same time, this situation was observed even where there had been no catastrophic events in the past. Therefore, our Solar System really turned out to not be as strange as it seemed.
According to www.space.com
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