News Astronomy

Astronomers explain planets’ backward motion

Unseen giants may be flipping orbits of Jupiter-sized worlds

WRONG-WAY WORLDS The planet WASP-8b (illustrated here) is one of at least a dozen Jupiter-sized planets known to orbit in the opposite direction to the rotation of their host stars.

L. Calçada/ESO

By Andrew Grant

- More than 2 years ago

They’re hot, they’re huge and they move the wrong way. In the rapidly growing catalog of planets found outside the solar system, about a dozen Jupiter-sized ones tightly circle their stars in the wrong direction.