Context:

• Astronomers have discovered a mysterious hot spot 930 light years from Earth on a gaseous exoplanet, at a place where they did not expect to find it – a discovery that challenges scientists’ understanding of such planets found in the solar systems outside our own.

CoRoT- 2b/Hot Jupiter:

• Exoplanet CoRoT- 2b, discovered a decade ago by a French-led space observatory mission, is also called as “hot Jupiter”.
• The exoplanet CoRoT- 2b, the hot spot turns out to lie in the opposite direction: west of centre.

Other Facts about Hot Jupiters:

• Unlike Jupiter, the so-called hot Jupiters circle astonishingly close to their host star – so close that it typically takes fewer than three days to complete an orbit.
• These planets experience strong winds blowing eastward near their equators, which can sometimes displace the hot spot toward the east.
• Previously studied nine other hot Jupiter, giant planets orbiting super close to their star. In every case, they have had winds blowing to the east, as theory would predict.
• But on this planet, the wind blows the wrong way. Since it’s often the exceptions that prove the rule, we are hoping that studying this planet will help us understand what makes hot Jupiters tick.
• This could be because the planet could be spinning so slowly that one rotation takes longer than a full orbit of its star, creating winds blowing toward the west rather than the east.

Source:TH