What orbital characteristic strongly suggests a Hot Jupiter resulted from Scattering Events?

Answer

High eccentricity

Scattering Events represent a much more violent scenario for planetary relocation, often involving close gravitational encounters between two or more massive giant planets in a crowded system. When such a chaotic interaction occurs, one planet might be slingshotted inward toward the star while another is ejected completely from the system. This turbulent, high-energy process imparts significant angular momentum changes, which is mathematically expressed as high eccentricity in the surviving planet's path. A highly eccentric orbit means the planet travels in a path that is highly elliptical, whipping very close to the star on one side (periastron) and swinging far away on the other (apastron), providing a direct observational signature of a gravitational scattering event.

What orbital characteristic strongly suggests a Hot Jupiter resulted from Scattering Events?

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