{"id":29806,"date":"2022-02-25T08:58:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T08:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=56214"},"modified":"2022-02-25T09:15:14","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T09:15:14","slug":"10-of-the-weirdest-exoplanets-in-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/10-of-the-weirdest-exoplanets-in-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"10 of the weirdest exoplanets in the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Jane Williamson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 25 February 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Since the discovery of the first exoplanets in the 1990s, all manner of weird and wonderful worlds have been found orbiting distant stars beyond our Solar System.<\/p>\n

Who wouldn\u2019t want to leave Earth for the promise of an interplanetary trip to a strange exoplanet<\/a>? With thousands confirmed and the number of exoplanets discovered<\/a> growing daily, you may get lucky: about half of the Sun-like stars out there are thought to have the potential to host life<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about 300 million potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy (for more on this, find out what makes a planet habitable<\/a>) Don\u2019t pack your bags just yet though \u2013 as these weird planets show, you may be in for the holiday from hell.<\/p>\n

And, with a wealth of new exoplanet-hunting missions<\/a> in the pipeline, there could be plenty more strange worlds discovered over the coming years.<\/p>\n

10 of the strangest exoplanets discovered<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1<\/span>

HD 189773b \u2013 where it rains glass sideways<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""Exoplanet\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: ESO\/M. Kornmesser<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This nightmare world is only 64 lightyears away and the closest \u2018hot Jupiter<\/a>\u2019 to Earth. It may look like a gorgeous deep-blue marble floating serenely in space, but if you had the misfortune to visit this massive gas giant, you\u2019d soon regret it.<\/p>\n

As well as being spun furiously by winds blowing at 8,700 km\/h, you\u2019d be cut to shreds by glass rain. The planet\u2019s delightful blue colour is the reflection of silicate in its atmosphere \u2013 silicate that, when heated by the planet\u2019s deathly 1300\u00b0C temperature, forms grains of glass.<\/p>

2<\/span>

TOI 849 b \u2013 a world stripped bare<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""Exoplanet\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: University of Warwick\/Mark Garlick<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Discovered in 2020 by NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite<\/a> (TESS), it\u2019s no fun at all on TOI 849 b. This exoplanet orbits so tightly to its star that a year passes in 18 hours. Don\u2019t bother with constant birthday parties though, as there\u2019s no atmosphere and the 1530\u00b0C heat would melt the cake.<\/p>\n

What makes TOI 849 b particularly weird though is its strangely hybrid nature. While it\u2019s around the size of gas giant Neptune, it\u2019s dense and rocky not gaseous \u2013 in fact, it\u2019s the largest rocky world yet discovered, 40 times as massive as Earth. It may even be the first Chthonian planet to be detected: the exposed remnant core of a gas giant that has had its atmosphere blasted away.<\/p>

3<\/span>

WASP-12b \u2013 p<\/strong>uffed up planet in a death spiral<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""An\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: NASA\/ESA\/G. Bacon<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Just three million or so years from its eventual fiery demise, WASP-12b is spiralling inexorably inwards towards doom at the hands of its yellow dwarf host star.<\/p>\n

New research has shown that the planet, located 600 lightyears away in the Auriga constellation, is now so close that it\u2019s begun wobbling and distorting under the spell of the star\u2019s gravity, while intense stellar radiation has caused it to swell up so much that it\u2019s falling apart.<\/p>\n

Read more about exoplanet WASP-12b<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>

4<\/span>

Rogue worlds: exoplanets on the loose<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""An\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Many exoplanets may be scary and inhospitable, and they may come in different sizes, colours and densities, but at least they all reliably do one thing: orbit a star. Or do they? While most planets are locked in orbit around their sun, some worlds are actually roaming the galaxy untethered. With no parent star to light and warm them, life is dark and cold on these nomads adrift in the vastness of space.<\/p>\n

Catching sight of these hard-to-detect \u2018rogue planets\u2019 will be one of the tasks for NASA\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, coming online around 2025. One such planet is OT44, located 550 lightyears away in the constellation Chamaeleon. This cosmic wanderer is eleven times more massive than Jupiter and thought to have a circumstellar disc of dust, rock and ice. The recently identified OGLE-2016-BLG-1928 is another. Likely smaller than Earth, it\u2019s one of the lowest-mass objects ever found using microlensing<\/a> techniques.<\/p>

5<\/span>

55 Cancri e \u2013 a diamond planet<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""An\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
An artist\u2019s concept showing how exoplanet 55 Cancri e compares with Earth. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/R. Hurt (SSC)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This exoplanet in orbit around Sun-like host star 55 Cancri A may be a real gem. The first super-Earth discovered around a main sequence star, it was thought to be so abundant in carbon that, thanks to immense pressure and 2,700\u00b0C temperatures, its interior was made of diamond.<\/p>\n

More recent research has taken the shine off the diamond theory, revealing less carbon than previously thought, but the nature of 55 Cancri e remains enigmatic and hotly contested.<\/p>\n

Read more about exoplanet 55 Cancri e<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>

6<\/span>

TrES-2b\u00a0\u2013 the darkest exoplanet<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""Exoplanet\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so\u2026black! You can hardly make out its shape\u2026light just seems to fall into it!\u201d Hitchhiker\u2019s\u2019<\/em> Ford Prefect may have been describing Hotblack Desiato\u2019s limoship, but he could just as easily have been talking about TrES-2b. Identified by NASA\u2019s Kepler Space Telescope<\/a> in 2011, it\u2019s the darkest known exoplanet, reflecting less than 1% of any light that hits it.<\/p>\n

TrES-2b orbits a star some 750 lightyears away in the direction of the constellation Draco and is the darkest planet or moon ever discovered. \u201cIt\u2019s darker than the blackest lump of coal, than dark acrylic paint you might paint with. It\u2019s just ridiculous how dark this planet is,\u201d said study lead-author David Kipping from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics<\/a>.<\/p>

7<\/span>

KELT-9b \u2013 the hottest exoplanet<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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\""An\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Ultra-hot Jupiter-type exoplanet KELT-9b is so scorching that it\u2019s even hotter than many stars.\u00a0It orbits so close to its sun that its surface sizzles at 4,300C \u2013 so hot that it has atomic iron and titanium in its atmosphere \u2013 and a year lasts less than a day and a half.<\/p>\n

Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope<\/a>, researchers have found that the extreme temperatures on the planet\u2019s dayside cause molecules of hydrogen gas to tear apart, only to recombine when they flow to the relatively cooler eternal nightside, before being torn apart once more when they move back into the furnace.<\/p>\n

Read more about exoplanet KELT-9b<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>

8<\/span>

HR 5183b \u2013 the planet with the maddest orbit<\/h3>\n<\/div>

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