An illustration of the concept of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. Each star generally rotates by itself and has an approaching part and a receding part. During a planetary transit, we can see the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, which is an apparent anomaly of the stellar radial velocity, the star appears to be receding if the transiting planet hides an approaching part and vice versa. We can observe this effect by precise radial velocity measurements. Note that if the planet orbits in a prograde manner, the planet first hides an approaching side and subsequently hides a receding side. Inversely, if the planet orbits in a retrograde manner, the effect occurs in reverse.
Credit: NAOJ