Wednesday, February 12, 2014


The Kepler space telescope has found a "weird, wobbly" planet that spins wildly on its axis like a child's top. Every 66 days, it rotates around a pair of red and orange dwarf stars, and even that orbit seems to wobble. The new planet, called Kepler-413b, has a spin axis that was found to vary by up to 30 degrees over 11 years. This means that the planet experiences extreme variations in its cycle of seasons. That is very different to Earth's rotational precession which is a only 23.5 degrees over 26,000 years. 

Kepler-413b is located about 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It isn't suitable for life because since it orbits to close to its stars, it makes it too hot to sustain liquid water. It's also known as a "super Neptune," which is just a gas giant with no place to stand and it is 65 Earth masses.


Astronomers are trying to explain this behavior. Some of the explanations are that there could be other planets that affect the orbit or there could be another star that is has a gravitational influence on it. 

Sources: 

http://spaceindustrynews.com/nasa-spots-and-incredibly-wobbly-super-neptune-planet-kepler-413b/4162/

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-planet-wobble-kepler-413b-20140204,0,7930803.story#axzz2tBYuBvmn


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