"Theory cannot explain a highly-inclined “hot Jupiter” around a star. At least New Scientist is honest about it. Its coverage leaves the mystery unexplained: “Weirdly tilted planet knocks formation theory out of line,” reporter Joshua Sokol writes. “A freshly discovered off-kilter exoplanet is knocking our best theory on how such beasts form out of line.” He leaves the case of HATS-14b, with its “whopping 76 degrees” inclination compared to its star’s axis, as an anomaly. The very guys who
came up with the “tidal theory” to explain planetary alignments are stuck. But then they have another anomaly: In another new paper, Winn and Gongjie Li of Harvard University address another flaw in the traditional idea. Once the star’s gravity grabs hold of a hot Jupiter’s atmosphere, the same forces that pull a tilted planet into line should cause the planet’s orbit to decay, eventually leading to the star gobbling it up. This means planets aligned this way shouldn’t stick around for long, but that can’t be true because we see them out there. Winn isn’t sure his theory can fully explain the discrepancy. “I happen to be the one that proposed this whole tidal story,” Winn says. “But I’m not especially wedded to it.” CEH
The heavens declare the glory of God;
Psalm 19:1
