[Darryl]

It turns out that planets that orbit the star Upsilon Andromedae don't all orbit this star in the same plane. It's in contrast to the planets in our solar system which do orbit our sun on the same plane. Two of the three planets that orbit Upsilon Andromedae are inclined 30 degrees in relation to each other. This type of behaviour has not been witnessed before in any other extrasolar planetary system before. Astronomers say that this will affect the theories on how planetary systems are formed. This finding was discovered using the Hubbble Telescope and other telescopes around the world.

[Blue Fire]

This is actually a very, very cool finding for me because, I've had this nagging question in my head for years and years. Just because the planets in our solar system are basically in the same orbital plane, doesn't mean that didn't happen differently around other stars. Of course my next question is how it could have happened. I understand the principle that has been put forth for planet formation in our own solar system, but if it turns out that it's common for planets around other stars to orbit in different planes, then we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how that happens.

It's definitely a fascinating topic!

[dmill1220]

Darryl, on 24 May 2010 - 10:57 AM, said:

It turns out that planets that orbit the star Upsilon Andromedae don't all orbit this star in the same plane. It's in contrast to the planets in our solar system which do orbit our sun on the same plane. Two of the three planets that orbit Upsilon Andromedae are inclined 30 degrees in relation to each other. This type of behaviour has not been witnessed before in any other extrasolar planetary system before. Astronomers say that this will affect the theories on how planetary systems are formed. This finding was discovered using the Hubbble Telescope and other telescopes around the world.

Hasn't anyone brought up the possibility that these orbital bodies may have been captured bodies? what ever happened to the Ockams Razor principle on this one? I can think of many possibilities that would show this without contradicting the current theory of a Solar system formation.

One of our own dwarf planets in our system also does not travel along our ecliptic plane

There also has been another discovery of a system that has one of the planets orbiting in the other direction, I just cannot remember where I saw that article.

Dennis

[Blue Fire]

dmill1220, on 09 July 2010 - 12:12 PM, said:

Hasn't anyone brought up the possibility that these orbital bodies may have been captured bodies? what ever happened to the Ockams Razor principle on this one? I can think of many possibilities that would show this without contradicting the current theory of a Solar system formation.

One of our own dwarf planets in our system also does not travel along our ecliptic plane

There also has been another discovery of a system that has one of the planets orbiting in the other direction, I just cannot remember where I saw that article.

Dennis

That is indeed a possibility, Dennis. But if the planets were captured, then that would beg the question of how and where those planets formed and got captured in the first place. If they formed around a different star, then how did they escape that star? So, I'm thinking that while your question seems quite valid, it also seems to raise more questions than it would answer, thus negating to some extent the application of Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor in this case.