Seminar by Michael Poon, Toronto
Planetary obliquity – the tilt between a planet’s rotational and orbital axes – reveals crucial insights into their evolutionary histories and climate. We see this throughout our Solar System, exemplified by Uranus’ extreme 98° obliquity suggesting a tumultuous past with a violent collision, and by Earth’s 23° tilt that gives us our seasons. Only in this decade have we begun measuring these planetary tilts beyond our Solar System. In this talk, I will describe my work exploring the emerging field of *exo*planetary obliquities through observational, theoretical, and statistical lenses. First, I will present our observational constraints on the first Uranus-like tilt of an exoplanet, spinning on its side. Next, I will demonstrate how exomoons can dramatically tilt planets in multi-planetary systems, applying this to the Beta Pic system, which now has JWST observations that will test my prediction. Finally, I will share early statistical evidence suggesting isotropic obliquities – raising new questions about whether young super-Jupiters form more like scaled-up planets or scaled-down stars.
Host: Daniel Yahalomi