The hottest point on a gaseous planet near a distant star isn’t where astrophysicists expected it to be – a discovery that challenges scientists’ understanding of the many planets of this type found in solar systems outside our own.

Unlike our familiar planet Jupiter, 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.  And one hemisphere of these planets always faces its host star, while the other faces permanently out into the dark.