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Planets orbit stars in the same direction that the stars rotate. They all do. Except one.
A newfound planet orbits the wrong way, backward compared to the rotation of its host star. Its discoverers think a near-collision may have created the retrograde orbit, as it is called.
The star and its planet, WASP-17, are about 1,000 light-years away. The setup was found by the UK's Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project in collaboration with Geneva Observatory. The discovery was announced
WASP-17 likely had a close encounter with a larger planet, and the gravitational interaction acted like a slingshot to put WASP-17 on its odd course, the astronomers figure.
(WASP-17) is quite possibly the most bloated, swollen planet observed so far. Explaining why it is so bloated is still a bit of a mystery, but this is what makes exoplanet research so fascinating.
I would imagine after time the orbit will slow to a crawl and switch rotation to match that of the star it orbits.
Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846 by William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. At 2700 km in diameter, it is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System. Triton comprises more than 99.5% of all the mass known to orbit Neptune, including the planet's rings and twelve other known moons.
Because of its retrograde orbit (unique for an object of its size) and similar composition to Pluto, Triton is thought to have been captured from the Kuiper belt.