Astronomers discover a giant planet spinning up its star

(Phys.org)--A giant "hot Jupiter" exoplanet has recently been detected by an international team of astronomers led by Kaloyan Penev of Princeton University. The newly found alien world, designated HATS-18b, is an interesting case of a planet tidally spinning up its parent star. Moreover, this planetary system could be a great laboratory for researchers when it comes to testing theories of planet-star interactions. The new findings were presented in a paper published online on June 2 on arXiv.org...