A new study shows a giant exoplanet, about four times the size of Jupiter, doing somersaults into space and tugging four sibling planets along.

Researchers said the huge alien planet, known as 55 Cancri d, is tugged by a distant companion star as it orbits its own parent star. This results in the flipping of the planet over the course of millions of years, while the other four planets in the system follow suit.

"It kind of shepherds along the other planets," said study lead author Nathan Kaib of Queen's University in Canada.

The 55 Cancri system which is located about 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cancer, contains two stars with one having five planets. The other is almost 1,100 times as far away from them as the sun is from Earth but still affects the planets' motions.

After running more than 450 computer simulations on the 55 Canri system, the researchers decided that the spin axis of 55 Cancri d probably flips completely upside-down after millions of years. Even more intriguing, the planet causes the smaller bodies in the system to swing with it.

The influence of the companion star was probably overlooked until now because it is so distant, Kaib explained.

"Other studies looking at the effect of binary stars on planets tend to focus on tighter binaries," he said.

As to how long it takes for the the planets to swing from top to bottom, that depends on the time it takes for the two stars to circle one another, researchers said. Kaib and his team modeled a variety of paths for the two stars and found that most of them resulted in severe axis shifts for all five planets.

The research was published in the December issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.