The truth is out there - and it’s strange.
Scientists have confirmed the existence of at least four thousand other planets in the universe,
and some of them have some truly bizarre features. Here are 21 weird things on other planets
that scientists once thought impossible. #21. GJ 1214b Earth is a world dominated by water, with its
massive oceans taking up more than two-thirds of the world’s surface area. Those oceans hold
a massive ecosystem - but our world is still dominated by the land lifeforms. But surrounding a
star 48 light-years from the sun is another world, GJ 1214 b, that may take being a water world to
a whole new level. Scientists have observed this world through powerful telescopes and discovered
that it has water. A lot of water. In fact, the entire planet may be covered by one massive
ocean, with any land being deep underwater. Which makes it a potential world full of life. It’s a large planet, classified as
a super-Earth, and has a relatively low density. It has a similar structure to
the ice moon Europa, which orbits Jupiter, and NASA observed what looks like clouds in the
atmosphere surrounding the planet in 2013. That makes GJ 1214b one of the best potential worlds
sighted for alien life, and its relative closeness to the sun makes it a planet of interest to
astronomers. It’s likely that a water world would have regions that are frozen solid, but life could
easily exist within its more temperate regions. But another world provides a
far less welcoming environment. #20. OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb Let’s head to the far reaches of the universe,
close to 25,000 light-years away from the Earth, where we find one of the most distant
exoplanets ever discovered. But as if being so isolated wasn’t enough, there’s another
reason this planet is one of the least hospitable in the universe - it orbits a red dwarf
star, one of the weakest in the universe. This provides very little heat, turning any
planet that orbits it into a frozen wasteland. How cold? It’s estimated to have a surface
temperature of -364 degrees Fahrenheit. What would the surface be
like on a planet this cold? For one thing, everything would be frozen.
Everything on the planet would be covered by a thick coating of ice amid mountains and
plains. Any organic matter on the surface of this planet would be frozen solid in seconds and
become just another ice sculpture on the surface. It’s highly unlikely anything could
survive on this icebox of a planet, at least on the surface - but it’s impossible to
know what exists deep under the surface. The ice coating has likely been in place for millions
of years, and if the planet has a heated core, it’s unlikely but possible that something
could be lurking hidden in the depths. But what about a planet that’s…fluffy? #19. TrES-4b Welcome to one of the largest planets in the known
universe, orbiting a star in the constellation Hercules. It’s only about 1,400 light years from
Earth, and is close to twice the size of the gas giant Jupiter. But it’s not its size that makes
it unique - it’s its bizarre chemical makeup. It’s very close to its star, meaning the planet’s
surface can reach temperatures as high as 2300 degrees Fahrenheit. It rotates around its star in
only three days, under intense heat and pressure the whole time, which has given it a consistency
unlike anything else known in the universe. And if you can stand the heat, it
might be nice to lay your head on. Scientists believe that the consistency of TrES-4b
is best described as “puffy”. It has roughly the consistency of cork, and has a density of
about a third gram per cubic centimeter. This is the lowest density of any planet known
when it was discovered. With its star being large, strong, and powerful, it created ideal
conditions for the planet to soften and expand while barely holding its integrity together.
Someone who was on this planet could probably tear off a chunk and take it home - if they
weren’t too busy being burnt to a crisp. But one planet truly seems to defy physics. #18. HD 106906 b This planet seems like it would be relatively
easy to examine - at under 350 light years from Earth in the constellation Crux, it’s far
from the most distance or bizarre planets astronomers have discovered. But what they
have discovered is very strange - namely, this planet seems to operate in defiance of every
other rule of planetary makeup. It’s extremely distant from its sun, a whopping sixty billion
milles - which is more than twenty times the difference between the Sun and Neptune. Any planet
this far from its star would be freezing cold. So why is it scorching hot? Estimates are that HD 106906 b has a surface
temperature of up to 2700 degrees Fahrenheit. It has eleven times the mass of Jupiter, making it
incredibly dense. But the source of its shocking heat isn’t what you’d expect - it actually makes
its own heat. When it was formed, the residual heat created an infrared glow that continues
to heat - or burn - the planet to this day. Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly
how a planet could be in orbit this far from a parent star, but right now this strange world
remains one of the universe’s biggest mysteries. But how about a planet that’s all too familiar? #17. Kepler-438b NASA is constantly keeping its eyes
out for planets that could hold life, and they use the Earth Similarity Index to
judge each candidate. They compare radius, mass, and surface conditions - and one
planet has a record-high rating of 0.88, hiding within the orbit of Kepler-438. Its
orbit is fairly similar to Earth’s, meaning it exists in a habitable zone where water could
exist in liquid form. In fact, its temperatures are similar to Earth as well, with an average
in the winter of roughly 37 degrees Fahrenheit. So is this world truly Earth’s twin? Not quite. For one thing, Kepler-438 is
a red dwarf star, so its mass and radius are roughly half those of the sun. The star
is much dimmer than the sun, and the planet would be significantly colder. But while it’s
considered to exist within the habitable zone, the radiation from its star is likely to make the
planet a very difficult place to sustain life. Every hundred days, it’ll encounter violent
storms akin to more extreme versions of the solar flares that come from our sun. So
if anything can survive those radiation waves on Kepler-438b, the odds are it’ll look
very different from the creatures on Earth. Color isn’t the only thing
that sets this planet apart. #16. Gliese 504 b If there was a prize for the most
fashionable planet in the galaxy, it would definitely go to this planet surrounding
the star 59 Virginis. Around 57 light-years away from Earth, it catches the eyes of astronomers
for one reason - its stunning state of magenta, which makes it look more like a giant ball of
cotton candy than a planet. It gets this color from being a newly-formed planet, still glowing
with heat. So as welcoming as this planet looks, it’s more like a warning sign - because this gas
giant comes in at around 520 degrees Fahrenheit. But that’s far from the strangest
thing about this planet. It’s around the same size as Jupiter, and planets
of this huge size aren’t all that uncommon. But most of them are only a certain distance from
their star. However, Gliese 504 b is around nine times further from its star than Jupiter
is from the sun - making astronomers question how a massive object like this can remain
in orbit so far from its star. While it is still classified as a planet, other astronomers
have begun speculating it may actually qualify as a brown dwarf - a substellar object that
hasn’t quite reached the mass to become a star. But one planet may have been
there when it all began. #15. PSR B1620-26 B Far away from Earth, over 12,400 light-years
away, we enter one of the oldest regions of the universe. So old, in fact, that the
planet hiding there is nicknamed Methuselah after the ancient Biblical figure. This planet
is one of the oldest known planets, dating back a whopping 12.7 billion years old - more than twice
the age of Earth. So whatever created this planet was likely as close to the big bang as anything
in the universe has ever been. Its mass is almost twice the size of Jupiter, and its massive
orbit takes about a hundred years to complete. But that’s not the only thing
notable about this ancient world. PSR B1620-26 B doesn’t orbit one star - it
orbits two, a fast-spinning pulsar and a white dwarf. These stars also orbit each
other at around once every six months, and it’s believed to be one of the oldest
binary star systems in the universe. But the age is one of the few things actually
impressive about it - the stars are largely burned out and are located in a massive field
of 100,000 stars. The neighborhood is full of stellar activity, and the most impressive
thing about this far-flung planet is how it managed to survive for billions of years
- who knows what ancient secrets it holds? But it’s not the roughest planet in the universe. #14. TOI-849 B To the naked eye, TOI-849 B seems like an
unremarkable world. It looks like a massive rocky planet - in fact, the largest rocky planet ever
discovered, almost forty times as large as Earth. But it may not have started that way - this world
located around 741 light-years away from Earth has one of the most brutal climates ever discovered
in space. It has an extremely tight orbit with its star, rotating around it every single day.
That’s a lot of birthday cakes, and the close proximity to a star also means it’s extremely
hot - a whopping 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. So hot, in fact, that it might not
look a lot like itself anymore. As big as TOI-849 B is, it may have been a
lot bigger originally. It’s around the size of Neptune, but has no atmosphere. This has
led scientists to speculate that the planet may not be a rocky planet at all - but instead
the stripped-down burnt core of a massive gas giant. The intense radiation from the
star may have caused photoevaporation, the slow stripping of the
atmosphere from the world. Almost all planets of this size are gas
giants or have a very different texture, but TOI-849 B is so radically different that it
created a new designation - a Chthonian planet. This next planet takes one
feature beyond the impossible. #13. 1SWASP J1407b Around 434 light years from Earth,
in the constellation of Centaurus, lurks a huge gas giant that takes
after Saturn in one big way - it has rings. This so far is the only
exoplanet to be found with rings, but outside of the solar system, they apparently
do everything bigger. Because 1SWASP J1407b doesn’t just have rings - it has a massive network
of rings around 640 times the size of Saturn’s. How big are these rings? It’s estimated that if
this planet was dropped into our solar system, its rings would be clearly visible to the naked
eye and would be far larger than the moon. But that’s not the only
strange thing about this world. Telescopes have discovered a large gap inside
the network of rings, indicating that a moon could be orbiting the planet from within its
rings. The rings may also be growing, with debris from objects like comets being pulled in.
But the strangest thing about this planet is…it disappeared. After being sighted in
2012, it has not been located since, leading scientists to believe its orbit might
be highly irregular. The star system is one of the younger ones in the universe, meaning
everything around it may be constantly in flux. Now, how about a world of duality? #12. Gliese 581c The Batman villain Two-Face is known
for having half his face scarred, with one side being good and one side being
evil. He’d be right at home on Gliese 581c, one of the most unique planets in the universe.
Located only twenty light years from Earth in the Libra constellation, its much closer to its star
than Earth is to the sun. But what makes it unique is that it’s tidally locked - meaning that one
side is always facing the star, and the other is always in darkness. This results in two completely
different climates on the planet at all times. But could it be home to life? Not on most of the planet, that’s for sure.
The side facing the star is always burning, with climates similar to Mercury or Venus. The
dark side of the planet is a frozen wasteland incompatible with any form of life that we know.
But at the sides of the planet, where the two climates meet, is a tiny strip of land known
as the “Terminator zone”. Here, it’s possible that climates are moderate enough for life to
flourish - and the planet is Earthlike enough that scientists actually sent a radio message
to the planet in hopes of making first contact. This next planet begs the
question - how hot can you get? #11. WASP-12b The name of this planet might create images of a
nightmare world filled with evil stinging insects. They may be thankfully confined to B-movies,
but the real thing is no less deadly. Located around 1400 light-years from Earth, this
planet is one of the hottest in the universe. Located only 1/44th of the distance
from its star as Earth is from the sun, this Jupiter-like planet is believed to reach
burning temperatures of up to 4600 degrees Fahrenheit - and there’s no respite from the
heat, because it orbits its star every single day. And it’s only getting hotter from here. The temperatures on WASP-12b aren’t just enough
to kill any life, they’re enough to melt metals like titanium. The planet is also extremely dark
- one of the most pitch-black planets out there, absorbing light at a rapid rate. While the
planet is tidally locked, the dark side can still reach a fiery 2200 degrees Fahrenheit. But
it might not be around to be examined for much longer - recent studies indicate it’s so
close to the star, the gas giant is slowly being absorbed into it - and in only ten million
years, the fire planet of Wasp-12b may be no more. We heard you like Earth, so how about…mega-earth? #10. Kepler-10c Around 608 light-years away in the constellation
Draco, the planet Kepler-10c has been observed for some time and it interests NASA particularly
because it’s a lot like Earth - just mega-sized. It’s one of the largest Earth-like planets
ever discovered, weighing seventeen times as much as Earth and being almost twice the size.
Most planets significantly larger than Earth are gas giants, and scientists actually had to
revise their assumptions about planet structure, leading to a new class of worlds -
called, you guessed it, Mega-Earths. But could mega-earths have mega-humans? Kepler-10c has a lot in common with Earth, including an atmosphere and the likely
presence of both land and water, but it also has a lot of differences. For
one thing, its year is only forty-five days instead of 365 - usually meaning a much closer
orbit. And that means a much higher temperature. It’s believed that Kelpler-10c is almost four
times as hot as Jupiter and highly unlikely to play host to life It’s also a high-pressure
planet, which means much of its water may have been flash-frozen into “hot ice”. It’s a
massive, volatile world, but it’s not Earth. Sometimes, all it takes is one thing
to make a planet REALLY strange. #9. WASP-17b No, still not an evil bug planet, but the planets
circling around the WASP-17 star certainly seem to attract strangeness. This is another strange
puffy planet with a low density, and it’s around twice the size of Jupiter. Now officially
named Ditso, the massive planet attracted international attention when they discovered
something truly bizarre - it’s the first planet ever found to have a retrograde orbit, turning
around its star in the opposite direction. It seems to defy the laws of gravity itself as it
continuously turns in opposition to its star. But what could have caused this bizarre condition? Scientists have come up empty on concrete
theories, and with WASP-17b being around 1300 light-years away in the constellation
Scorpius, no one’s getting over there any time soon. But one thing’s for sure - whatever
caused it must have been incredibly powerful to override the gravitation impact of the
star. A collision with another smaller planet or a gravitational slingshot caused by
a celestial body could have created the effect millions of years ago. With an average
temperature of 2300 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s a highly inhospitable world -
no matter the direction it’s going. Now, let’s head to the dark side. #8. TrES-2b Around 750 light-years away from
Earth, a planet lurks in the shadows. It seems to be a standard gas giant at first,
larger than Jupiter and with a temperature of almost three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. But
this tidally locked planet has one particularly unique thing about it - no light gets in or out.
It’s the darkest known exoplanet in the universe, reflecting less than 1% of the light
that hits it. This makes the planet one of the darkest objects in the universe
- reflecting even less light than coal. But what makes it so dark? To the naked eye, it doesn’t even look
completely dark. What little light does get reflected off the planet gives off a dim
magenta color, making it look more like the ideal hideaway for an intergalactic conqueror.
But it’s believed that the planet doesn’t have any reflective clouds like the ones that give
Jupiter its distinct colors. It’s also much closer to its parent star than Jupiter and may
have light-absorbing chemicals in its atmosphere. One thing’s for sure - this is a planet
that isn’t giving away its secrets easily. But in terms of inhospitable
planets, it’s hard to top this one. #7. Kepler-78b When it was first discovered in 2013, Kepler-78b
looked impressively close to Earth. At the time, in terms of mass, density, and radius, it
was actually the planet closest to our home base. But having a similar base and being
a similar planet are very different things, and as this planet doesn’t live in the
Goldilocks zone where life is possible, its climate could not be more different
than ours. Instead, it lives in one of the most brutal climates imaginable - located less
than half a million miles from its host star, more than forty times closer to
it than Mercury is to the sun. And to say that makes things
hot would be putting it lightly. The average temperature is close to 3700 degrees
Fahrenheit, but the planet’s structure is similar to Earth - rocky and with a molten core. The
difference is, with such extreme temperatures, the rocky surface will never have fully formed and
hardened. The world will be constantly bubbling with molten rock - making it a planet-wide
game of The Floor is Lava. Kepler-78b is one of the only lava worlds ever found, and it’s
not likely that anything could survive there. From the closest planet to
maybe the most far-flung… #6. 2MASS 21265040-8140293 That’s a mouthful! This long-named planet
isn’t all that distinct on its own. It’s around 110 light-years away from Earth, is
between ten and forty-five million years old, and is likely a large gas planet significantly
larger than Jupiter. It doesn’t have any unique characteristics on its own - but its
neighborhood is incredibly strange. Because scientists found the planet - but
they couldn’t find its star. This planet seems to be floating on its own in space - but
is this planet truly operating without a star? The answer is, not exactly. The planet, often shortened to 2MASS J2126-8140,
orbits a red dwarf star. This makes its local star both weak and hard to see, which explains why
no one could find it - but it’s not the only reason. This planet also exists in one of the
largest solar systems in the universe and is likely the furthest planet away from its star.
It’s estimated to have a distance of around a trillion kilometers from its host star, and takes
around 900,000 years to complete a rotation. That means that if anyone’s thinking about going into
business here, don’t invest in birthday cakes. But some planets truly do go rogue. #5. OTS44 OTS44 is a massive object, eleven times larger
than the mass of Jupiter and at least a quarter the radius. It’s so large that some astronomers
think it may not be a planet at all, but a brown dwarf. It’s located around 550 light-years
from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon, but it’s not necessarily staying
there. That’s because OT44 is unique - it doesn’t orbit around any
star in Chamaeleon. It’s a massive free-floating object - and may be the
largest rogue planet known in the universe. Rogue planet…that sounds bad. Most rogue planets are much smaller than OT44, usually consisting of rocky objects that haven’t
gotten pulled into an orbit or were unmoored by a cosmic collision. So how does OT44 defy the
laws of physics? Despite its massive size, it’s actually one of the lowest-mass planets to float
freely, and is believed to have a central disc mostly composed of dust, ice, and rocks. It
may not be a planet in the traditional shape, but it’s easily one of the strangest
objects floating around in the universe. Now, let’s look at a planet
with the need for speed. #4. PSR J1719-1438 b One of the things that determine the conditions
of a planet is its star and proximity to it - and it doesn’t get more extreme than this planet.
The star it rotates is a millisecond pulsar, or a star with a rotation period of less than ten
milliseconds - less than it takes to blink. PSR J1719-1438 b orbits a tiny star that is only
around twelve miles in diameter - but has a greater mass than the sun. This creates
an extremely high-pressure environment, and the close orbit of this planet
to the high-powered ball of light means it completes a planetary
rotation in just over two hours But what’s it like on the surface? When close to a pulsar, the pressure is extremely
intense. This planet is believed to be composed of pressurized carbon, but the temperature
and pressure are so extreme that its density is likely greater than diamond. This planet is
around four thousand light-years away from Earth, and exploration of the properties of planets
under these conditions is only beginning. But when it was discovered in 2011, it was believed
to be the densest planet ever discovered. Now let’s head for a planet that could
make you rich - if you could get there. #3. Janssen Located about forty light-years away
from us in the Cancer constellation, the planet originally named 55 Cancri E
at first seemed to be similar to Neptune. Its close proximity to Earth let scientists study
it more closely than many other exoplanets - and what they discovered was surprising. Janssen
might be around twice the diameter of Earth, but it is incredibly dense and is mostly composed
of carbon. It takes less than eighteen hours to complete a rotation, and is intensely close
to its star - creating extreme pressure. But what’s on its surface may
be the most interesting part. The surface temperature of Janssen is
extreme, rising to about 4400 degrees Fahrenheit. When combined with the intense
pressure and the carbon-rich environment, scientists believe that the surface of Janssen
is covered with diamonds - a massive windfall for anyone who gets there to collect them, if they
can survive some of the deadliest conditions in the universe. Alas, its riches will have to wait
for aliens with much better space-suits than ours. But it’s not the only planet
with treasure waiting. #2. Hat-P-7b About 1100 light-years away in the constellation
Cygnus lies a planet that has many features we’ve seen before. It’s larger than Jupiter, and
rotates close to its host star. That makes it extremely hot, well over 4000 degrees
Fahrenheit during the day. It absorbs more than 97% of the light that reaches it, making it
extremely dark. But what makes it unique is its atmosphere - it contains an unusual percentage
of aluminum oxide, also known as Corundum. And when Corundum gets pressurized
just right, something strange happens. The planet is frequently hit by violent storms,
and the combination of the winds and the pressure on the planet pulls that corundum out of the
atmosphere and sends it raining down on the planet - in the form of rubies and sapphires. How
many of these actually come out of the atmosphere and what condition they’re in is unknown, but
the wild winds on the planet make it entirely possible that these precious gems could be
sprinkled all around the surface of Hat-P-7b. Now, are you ready to explore
the ultimate death world? #1. Hd 189733b Located only 64.5 light-years
from the solar system, lurking in the constellation of
Vulpecula, is the planet with maybe the harshest conditions in the universe. But
it didn’t seem like that at first - in fact, when it was first discovered, it probably
looked gorgeous. It has a deep blue color, making it look peaceful and almost Earth-like. But
this larger than Jupiter planet , has an average temperature of over 1500 degrees Fahrenheit,
and has an atmosphere mostly composed of silica. And when things heat up, this
planet gets incredibly dangerous. Silica is the building block of sand on
Earth, and when sand gets heated up enough, it becomes the foundation of glass. Combine
that with the extreme winds on this planet, which can reach over five thousand miles an
hour - seven times the speed of sound - and you have a recipe for disaster. Not
only does it rain glass on this planet, but it actually rains it sideways, as sharp shards
tear through the air faster than can be seen. So if this planet has any interesting secrets,
it’s going to be keeping them to itself. For more on our strange solar system, check out “The Mysterious Event
That Made Venus a Death Trap”.
