Weird Weather on Alien Worlds

摘要

Our solar system is a marvel filled with magnificent specimens of planets. Yet for all its beauty, we now know that it is a poor showcase for the remarkable diversity of known planetary systems. Nature does not have any particular interest in our system's regular ordering of rocky planets on inner orbits and gas giants on outer orbits. The final outcomes of haphazard planetary-system evolution can lead to planets ending up in strange places (S&T: May 2013, p. 26), far from where they formed and with properties where our Earthbound intuition fails.