Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Space

It’s time to worry. Planets switched to retrograde motion

It's time to worry. Planets switched to retrograde motion 1

In May, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter become retrograde – they change the direction of motion in the celestial sphere. Previously, it was considered a bad omen. In fact, in the solar system there is only one real retrograde – Venus. But the discovery of retrograde exoplanets was a complete surprise.

Copernicus explained everything

Even in ancient times, people noticed that planets moving in the heavens sometimes behave strangely, loop. Most of the year they follow from west to east (if they are farther from the Sun than the Earth) and suddenly turn around, back down. The moment when this happens is called standing.In 1514, Nicolaus Copernicus proved that the Earth is not the center of the universe, but together with other planets revolves around the Sun. 

Each celestial body has its own orbit, and the retrograde movement that is visible to us is the result of their superposition. For example, Mars approaches the Earth every two years as closely as possible and, overtaking it, draws an s-shaped loop in the sky.

It's time to worry. Planets switched to retrograde motion 2
© NASA / Tunc Tezel

The path of Mars in the celestial sphere in the period from July 2005 to February 2006. It goes from west to east and at the moment of approaching the Earth makes a loop. For a couple of months his movement seems retrograde to us.

Venus and Uranus versus all

All planets in relation to the Earth for a short time move backward, but this is only an appearance. Real retrogrades do not physically rotate like the rest. In the solar system, it is only Venus. If we were above the north pole of Venus, we would see that it rotates clockwise around its axis. Earth and other planets are against.It is believed that planets form together with a star from one protoplanetary disk. In theory, their orbits should lie in the same plane, and the directions of rotation in the orbit and around the axis should coincide. Why Venus is not like this is not yet clear. 

Although scientists note its strong similarity with the Earth – these planets are even called twins. One of the explanations is that the processes occurring in the bowels and atmosphere have slowed the rotation of Venus so much that it stopped at some point, and then began to spin in another direction.

The distant ice giant Uranus also looks like a retrograde. It lies on its side relative to the plane of its orbit, and pecks down the north pole, which makes Uranus seem to rotate clockwise. But if you put it normally, it will become normal. Scientists believe that billions of years ago, Uranus collided with a large cosmic body and turned over in space. Another hypothesis is that in the past the planet had a massive system of rings that caused resonance, rocked it and deployed.

General rules apply to planetary moons. For example, the Earth rotates counterclockwise, and so does the Moon around the Earth. But one of the 13 moons of Neptune – Triton – is “against the coat.” So, scientists conclude, Triton did not belong to Neptune, was an independent small body, until Neptune captured it from the Kuiper belt. By the way, Pluto, similar in composition to Triton, is also retrograde. In part, this contributed to its transfer to the category of dwarf planets.

It's time to worry. Planets switched to retrograde motion 3
© Illustration by RIA Novosti. NASA / JPLRetrograde motion of Triton. This is the only major satellite in the solar system that moves in orbit against the course of its planet.

Anomalies of hot jupiters

This is what our system is completely devoid of – planets that would move in orbits against the rotation of the Sun. For a long time, astronomers believed that this should be everywhere. But in 2009, they discovered the first exoplanet with a retrograde orbit at the star WASP-17 in the constellation Scorpio.WASP-17 b is the largest and least dense exoplanet known. Such gas giants are called hot jupiters.

Its retrograde intrigues scientists. Smadar Naoz from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern University ( USA ) proposed a possible mechanism: the mutual influence of giant planets during migration closer to a star or a brown dwarf. But its implementation requires the coincidence of too many conditions, and this is unlikely. Nevertheless, the astrophysicist put forward a bold hypothesis that such retrograde jupiters are not uncommon – a quarter among those observed. However, the existence of the hot Jupiters themselves is still waiting for its explanation.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Comments

You May Also Like

Space

In the last thirty years, astronomers have identified over 5,500 exoplanets orbiting stars similar to our Sun. Yet, from the outset, both the scientific...

Space

In the Soviet Union, in the period from 1961 to 1980, extensive work was carried out on radar measurement of the distance to the...

Space

While the bulk of conspiracy theorists are filling internet space on the date of the beginning of the Third World War, the date of...

Fact or fiction

Many who read space news have noticed an unusual interest of astronomers in Venus, which happened before the New Year and lasted for several...

Bizzare & Odd

According to information from the FBI documents – Nikola Tesla was an alien. There is a very mysterious document in the archives of the...

Fact or fiction

While climbing a hill near Johannesburg, a woman saw a low-hanging silver disk there, and then she had a telepathic connection with one of...

Mysteries

Something strange happened a few days ago in deep space. An amateur astronomer with a good telescope recorded several flashes or pulsating rays with...

Mysteries

The American author and ufologist once claimed to have been in contact with an extraterrestrial from Venus. A controversial figure in the annals of...

Advertisement