The giant planet J1407b has been a weird space mystery since its discovery in 2010. But a new study revealed something about the planet that may help explain at least part of its weirdness: a sprawling set of rings that may actually rotate backwards around the planet.
J1407b may be a rogue planet, drifting through space untethered to a star or other planets, or it may be orbiting nearby star V1400 Centauri on a wide loop that astronomers haven’t mapped yet. Either way, it’s home to wide rings and a handful of moons, one of which may be as large as our whole planet. Those rings and moons may actually be in a retrograde orbit, meaning they revolve backwards around the planet. A recent study used computer simulations to explain how that might happen.
