The 7 Strangest Planets to Have Been Discovered So Far

The 7 Strangest Planets to Have Been Discovered So Far

J1407B

 

Located about 434 light years away, this is a mass that is 40 times larger than Jupiter and is surrounded by 37 rings which cover 120 kilometers. It is also known as the “Super-Saturn.” Eric Mamajek once said “This is probably the first indirect evidence we have of moons forming around planets outside of our solar system. And that has never been seen before.” This is because there may be formations of moons around the planet.

 

HD 106906

 

It was suggested that a planet so big and far from its star cannot exist. This planet is 11 times larger than Jupiter and 650 times the distance of Earth from the sun. Even though it is really far from its main star, the temperature is about 1500 degrees Celsius. This planet is considered to be young as it is only 13 million years old.

 

TrES-2b

 

The giant gas planet is considered to be the darkest planet that has ever been found. The planet orbits about 3 million miles away from its main star.  David Kipping, Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics said, “If we could see it up close it would look like a near-black ball of gas, with a slight glowing red tinge to it— a true exotic amongst exoplanets.”

 

Exoplanet 55

 

Twice as large as Earth but with a mass of eight times more than that, it is considered to be made up of diamonds and 40 lightyears away from Earth. NikkuMadhusudhan from Yale University said, “This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth.”

 

Gliese 436 b

 

With a small rocky core and icy exterior which takes up the majority of the size of the planet which is equal to the size of Neptune. The temperature is about 439 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the planet is also known as the “burning ice planet.” David Ehrenreich from the University of Geneva said, “This cloud of hydrogen is very spectacular! Although the evaporation rate doesn’t threaten the planet right now, we know that the star, a faint red dwarf, was more active in the past.”

 

GJ 1214b

 

A planet which is known to be made up of water was discovered in 2009 and is almost same size of Earth but with a thick steamy atmosphere. Zachary Berta from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics described it as “the ‘steamy waterworld’ is like no planet we know of.”

 

WASP-12b

 

Known to be the hottest planet ever discovered which orbits 2,115,000 miles from the main star. The average temperature of the planet was about 2250 degrees Celsius.

 

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