Astronomers at the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdo0m, have recently discovered more evidence that massive exoplanets beyond our solar system can have orbits that are tilted in extreme manners. Some of these orbits can be so tilted, that the planets on them appear to be orbiting backwards in regards to their parent stars. Two such examples have already been identified, one after the other. The giant exoplanets in this class almost always revolved very close to their Suns, which is one of the main reasons why they acted they way they did, PhysOrg reports.

Planets are determined to be spawned from protoplanetary disks, which are huge fields of dust and gas that remain around a newly formed star. The disks basically originate in the huge clouds that collapse on themselves, and then ignite, to form the new celestial objects. These circular structures around the stars spin in the same direction they do, therefore the newly formed planet should take on the same orbit. This is what regularly happens in average systems, but some of them constitute exceptions.

The main reason for this is the fact that the new exoplanets that are spawned tend to interact violently with each other. The bodies closest to the parent star have their orbits influenced – as in elongated and tilted – by the actions o... (read more)