Think our weather is odd? Nasa finds weird, wildly wobbly world where seasons change by the day



Unique planet discovered by Nasa's Kepler telescope wobbles on its axis

Scientists say it could have extremely erratic seasons

Tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years



Nasa has found a unique planet which wobbles on its axis - causing weather conditions to be even more erratic than those on Earth.

Astronomers were stunned to find the planet, designated Kepler-413b wobbles wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top.

The tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons.



Kepler-413b wobbles wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top. The tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. This illustration shows the unusual orbit of planet Kepler-413b around a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars.

WHERE IS IT?

Kepler 413-b 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.

The next transit visible from Earth's point of view is not predicted to occur until 2020, because the orbit moves up and down, a result of the wobbling, in such a great degree that it sometimes does not transit the stars as viewed from Earth.

'Imagine living on a planet with seasons so erratic you would hardly know whether to wear Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat,' Nasa said.



In contrast, Earth's rotational precession is 23.5 degrees over 26,000 years.



Researchers are amazed that this far-off planet is precessing on a human timescale.



Kepler 413-b 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.



The planet's orbit around the binary stars appears to wobble, too, because the plane of its orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the star pair's orbit.



As seen from Earth, the wobbling orbit moves up and down continuously.



Kepler finds planets by noticing the dimming of a star or stars when a planet transits, or travels in front of them.

This is the space telescope Kepler's field of view, superimposed on the night sky so that the main stars are visible. In its four-year history, Kepler has confirmed 132 planets, and found 2,700 new ones. Some of the discoveries may harbour life

Normally, planets transit like clockwork.



Astronomers using Kepler discovered the wobbling when they found an unusual pattern of transiting for Kepler-413b.



'Looking at the Kepler data over the course of 1,500 days, we saw three transits in the first 180 days -- one transit every 66 days -- then we had 800 days with no transits at all.



'After that, we saw five more transits in a row,' said Veselin Kostov, the principal investigator on the observation.



The next transit visible from Earth's point of view is not predicted to occur until 2020, because the orbit moves up and down, a result of the wobbling, in such a great degree that it sometimes does not transit the stars as viewed from Earth.



Astronomers are still trying to explain why this planet is out of alignment with its stars.



WHAT IS KEPLER?

The Kepler space telescope orbits around the Sun, 40 million miles from Earth.

It is named after 17th Century astronomer Johannes Kepler.

It was launched in 2009 with the sole purpose of finding new stars and planets.

During that time it has confirmed 132 planets and spotted more than 2,700 potential ones.

In December 2011, Kepler found a new Earth-sized planet orbiting a star just 352 light years away.

It was found lurking in the Kepler star field and was named Kepler-21b.

Its parent star, the HD 179070, is so close it can be viewed with a home telescope.

Kepler is a space observatory launched by Nasa to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Data from Kepler could help humans find alien life However, Nasa scientists said there’s very little chance of it hosting life because the surface is a 1627C (2960F).

Kepler's mission was supposed to be over by now, but last year NASA agreed to keep Kepler running through 2016 at a cost of about £13 million ($20 million) a year. According to Nasa scientists, there is, what's dubbed, a 'Goldilocks Zone' in space where the temperature is not too hot, or too cold, for water to exist in liquid form.

Any planets found in this zone could have life on them.

If Kepler is retired, Nasa scientists believe the search for other lives on planets could be severely hindered.

There could be other planetary bodies in the system that tilted the orbit.



Or, it could be that a third star nearby that is a visual companion may actually be gravitationally bound to the system and exerting an influence.



'Presumably there are planets out there like this one that we're not seeing because we're in the unfavorable period,' said Peter McCullough, a team member with the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University.



'And that's one of the things that Veselin is researching: Is there a silent majority of things that we're not seeing?'



Even with its changing seasons, Kepler-413b is too warm for life as we know it.



Because it orbits so close to the stars, its temperatures are too high for liquid water to exist, making it inhabitable.



It also is a super Neptune - a giant gas planet with a mass about 65 times that of Earth -- so there is no surface on which to stand.





