* Astronomy

Title: A Nearly Polar Orbit for the Extrasolar Hot Jupiter WASP-79b
Authors: B. C. Addison, C. G. Tinney, D. J. Wright, D. Bayliss, G. Zhou, J. D. Hartman, G. Á. Bakos, B. Schmidt

We report the measurement of a spin-orbit misalignment for WASP-79b, a recently discovered, extremely bloated transiting hot Jupiter from the WASP survey. Data were obtained using the CYCLOPS2 optical-fibre bundle and its simultaneous calibration system feeding the UCLES spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory. We have used the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect to determine the sky-projected spin-orbit angle to be lambda = -106+10-8 degrees. This result indicates a significant misalignment between the spin axis of the host star and the orbital plane of the planet -- the planet being in a nearly polar orbit. WASP-79 is consistent with other stars that have Teff > 6250K and host hot Jupiters in spin-orbit misalignment.

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