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Cosmic tango: this extremely strange planet's orbit points to a violent and chaotic past

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If you close your eyes and imagine a planetary system orbiting a distant star, what do you see? For most people, such thinking gives rise to systems that mirror the Solar System: planets orbiting their parent stars in nearly circular orbits – rocky planets are closer together, and giants like Jupiter in the icy depths. However, the more we study the cosmos, the more we begin to realize that planetary systems like ours may be more the exception than the rule. Imagine a system with a single gas planet, slightly larger than Saturn, tracing the surface of its parent star in a very fast orbit. It is extremely hot and glows a dull red, baked in stellar radiation. Then imagine another, more distant giant planet, larger than Jupiter, moving on a distant and highly elongated orbit that makes it look more like a comet than a traditional planet. It doesn’t sound like home, does it? But that’s what we found. Introducing planetary system HD83443 The story of the HD83443 system begins in the late

Cosmic tango: this extremely strange planet's orbit points to a violent and chaotic past

Image
If you close your eyes and imagine a planetary system orbiting a distant star, what do you see? For most people, such thinking gives rise to systems that mirror the Solar System: planets orbiting their parent stars in nearly circular orbits – rocky planets are closer together, and giants like Jupiter in the icy depths. However, the more we study the cosmos, the more we begin to realize that planetary systems like ours may be more the exception than the rule. Imagine a system with a single gas planet, slightly larger than Saturn, tracing the surface of its parent star in a very fast orbit. It is extremely hot and glows a dull red, baked in stellar radiation. Then imagine another, more distant giant planet, larger than Jupiter, moving on a distant and highly elongated orbit that makes it look more like a comet than a traditional planet. It doesn’t sound like home, does it? But that’s what we found. Introducing planetary system HD83443 The story of the HD83443 system begins in the late

Cosmic tango: this extremely strange planet's orbit points to a violent and chaotic past

Image
If you close your eyes and imagine a planetary system orbiting a distant star, what do you see? For most people, such thinking gives rise to systems that mirror the Solar System: planets orbiting their host stars in nearly circular orbits – rocky planets are closer, and giants like Jupiter in the icy depths. However, the more we study the cosmos, the more we begin to realize that planetary systems like ours may be more the exception than the rule. Imagine a system with one gas planet, slightly larger than Saturn, tracing the surface of its parent star in a very fast orbit. It is extremely hot and glows a dull red, baked in stellar radiation. Then imagine another, more distant giant planet, larger than Jupiter, moving on a distant and highly elongated orbit that makes it look more like a comet than a traditional planet. It doesn’t sound like home, does it? But that’s what we found. Introducing planetary system HD83443 The story of the HD83443 system begins in the late 20th century, wh