In the search to find an alien world habitable to human life, astronomers often come across worlds that subvert expectations, but a recent study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics has revealed an entire solar system that's far weirder than first observations suggested.
Two of the planets orbiting the star HD 3167, which is roughly 150 light-years away, are orbiting at a right angle to the plane planets usually follow, going over and under their host star's poles instead of around the equator, like Earth and other planets in our solar system do.
But now researchers have mapped the orbit of the innermost planet, called HD 3167 b, for the first time. And, instead of following the up-down polar orbit like the other two in the system, this one orbits normally, going around its star's equator.
We've never seen anything like this before. And a mysterious, undetected force is wreaking havoc there.
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