spacetoday.net: Astronomers find tilted solar system

Posted: Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 10:29 AM ET (1429 GMT)
Kepler-56 tilted orbits illustration (NASA)

Astronomers reported this week the discovery of a solar system whose inner planets are at a sharp angle to the rotational plane of the star thanks to the gravitational influence of a more distant planet. In a paper published in this week's issue of Science, a team of astronomers reported that the two inner planets orbiting the star Kepler-56 have orbits that are at a 45-degree angle to the rotation of the star itself. Models of planetary formation typically require planets to form in close to the star's rotational plane, suggesting that some external influence moved the planets out of the plane. Astronomers believe that the gravity of a much larger planet in a more distant orbit tugs on the inner planets, keeping them in their inclined orbits. While astronomers have previously found planets with inclined orbits, those earlier discoveries involved the presence of a "hot Jupiter" near the star that doesn't exist with Kepler-56.