Recently, scientists made a discovery that shocked the entire scientific community and radically changed the way we think about space. A planet was discovered that violates the rules of the universe known to mankind.

Some exoplanets, including the gas giant WASP-131b, rotate in a very unusual way. The details were reported by Phys.

First, about the general. In the Solar System, the orbits of the planets have the same orientation. The planes of the orbits differ by a few degrees, but they rotate around the Sun in the same way. Astronomers note that a similar situation occurs in other galaxies, i.e. the orbits of the planets and the main star are aligned.

But there are exoplanets that offset these rules. Scientists have no explanation for this phenomenon. There are only theories and hypotheses. Scientists have suggested that during the formation of a star, a protoplanetary disk may remain around it. It contains dust and gas. As planets begin to form inside this disk, they have more or less the same orbits.

This theory loses its relevance in the case of the WASP-131 star system. Imagine a large star (WASP-131) around which a gas giant (WASP-131b) orbits. The latter has an incredibly high surface temperature and orbits its star in only 5 Earth days (the Earth does it in 365 days).

The exoplanet WASP-131b is indeed a giant, as it is 20% larger than Jupiter. And Jupiter, by the way, is twice as massive as all the planets of the Solar System combined. The mass of WASP-131b is 25% of Jupiter's mass.

Having studied the rotation of the main star, scientists said that the exoplanet's orbit is inclined by about 160 degrees from the plane of rotation. That is, WASP-131b is in a high, almost retrograde, orbit.

It remains a mystery how the exoplanet got such an orbit. Astronomers have put forward two hypotheses. According to the first one, there was an interaction with WASP-131b and other planets of this system that are still unknown to mankind. This led to a shift in the orbit. This phenomenon is not so rare. For example, a small shift occurred with Neptune as a result of interaction with Pluto. But in the case of WASP-131b, the shift is too large, so the proposed theory does not stand up to criticism.

According to the second version, the shift was caused by the interaction between WASP-131b and the protoplanetary disk. And this could have happened only at an early stage of the exoplanet's formation.

The universe hides many more mysteries, and perhaps humanity will someday be able to solve the mystery of WASP-131b.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL also talked about scientifically based options for the complete destruction of the Earth.

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