File / 06 · 136 degrees / no companion

A planet is circling backward, and the culprit is missing

A dark Nogical observatory where one blue planet follows a luminous orbit against the other rings around a small red star. — Original Nogical illustration · Interpretive image, not astronomical observation

Measurements place the Neptune-sized GJ 3090 b on a retrograde orbit around its small, cool star — the first known example around an M dwarf. Astronomers found no wide stellar companion or massive outer planet able to explain the 136-degree misalignment. A second, differently tilted birth disk could have formed it backward, but that origin remains a hypothesis for further observation.

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