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<blockquote data-quote="Robby" data-source="post: 35791" data-attributes="member: 4">Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet <img src="http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2014-12-a-small_web.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><a href="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/12/">Get larger image formats</a> Imagine living on a planet with seasons so unpredictable you would hardly know what to wear: Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat! That's the situation on a weird world found by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The planet, designated Kepler-413b, is located 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It circles a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars every 66 days. But what makes this planet very unusual is that it wobbles, or precesses, wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top. The planet's orbit is tilted with respect to the plane of the binary star's orbit. Over an 11-year period, the planet's orbit too would appear to wobble as it circles around the star pair. All of this complex movement leads to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. (More at <a href="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/12/">Hubble Site</a>)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Robby, post: 35791, member: 4"] [b]Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet [/b] [IMG]http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2014-12-a-small_web.jpg[/IMG] [URL='http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/12/']Get larger image formats[/URL] Imagine living on a planet with seasons so unpredictable you would hardly know what to wear: Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat! That's the situation on a weird world found by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The planet, designated Kepler-413b, is located 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It circles a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars every 66 days. But what makes this planet very unusual is that it wobbles, or precesses, wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top. The planet's orbit is tilted with respect to the plane of the binary star's orbit. Over an 11-year period, the planet's orbit too would appear to wobble as it circles around the star pair. All of this complex movement leads to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. [i](More at [url="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/12/"]Hubble Site[/url])[/i] [/QUOTE]

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