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Old 26-08-2010, 05:03 PM
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renormalised (Carl)
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Post Unusual Orbits for Planetary System

Astronomers at the 216th meeting of the American Astronomical Society announced that the orbit of one of the planets of the Upsilon Andromedae system, planet "C", was inclined at an angle of about 30 degrees to the plane of the rest of the system....McArthur et al, 2010.

(The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 715, Issue 2, pp. 1203-1220 (2010))

The planet possibly ended up in its present orbital inclination due to some violent encounter(s) sometime after the formation of the system. The possible cause was most likely planet to planet scattering due to the gravitational interactions between the planets after their formation. Another mechanism may have been through gravitational perturbations via ups And B, which is a red dwarf that is currently separated from Star A by around 750AU. It's likely that it may have been closer to the main star in the past.

Last edited by renormalised; 26-08-2010 at 05:24 PM.
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