Giant Alien Planet

Astronomers have detected a hidden planet by examining the orbits of the known worlds in the star system known as Kepler-139. The newfound alien planet, Kepler-139f, is a gigantic world roughly twice the mass of Neptune and 35 times the mass of Earth. It takes 355 days to orbit its star. Despite its giant size, Kepler-139f had evaded detection until now.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope discovered nearly 3,000 planets in the nine years it operated. But it relied on worlds transiting, that is, passing between their star and Earth. When they do that, the resulting dimming of the star allowed astronomers to identify planets and calculate their size. But Kepler couldn’t see planets traveling above or below the wedge of space between it and the star, so any outliers remained unseen.

But when the hidden world is part of a multiplanet system, astronomers could maybe find it despite its inclined orbit. And Kepler-139 has three rocky transiting super-Earths; later a fourth gas giant was discovered. Gaps between their orbits suggested that other worlds might be present. Precise measurements of the orbits allowed the astronomers to infer the existence of at least one more planet. It seems the problem is not exactly in finding non-transiting planets, but in finding situations where they can deduce where the non-transiting planet is located.

After Kepler initially identified a world, observations from the ground often followed. By using a planet’s radial velocity, astronomers could measure the amount the planet tugged on its star, which allowed them to determine the planet’s mass. Radial velocity measurements could also reveal new worlds, which is what happened with the outermost gas giant, Kepler-139e.

Each planet is pulled not only by its star but also by other planets in the system, even if that planet cannot be seen from Earth. These pulls can affect how swiftly a planet transits, which creates ‘transit timing variations’. Such variations can reveal worlds that don’t cross the star.

Scientists looked for gaps in known systems. Then they used both radial velocity and transit timing variation measurements to hunt for a missing planet. While the radial velocity observations did not conclusively point toward another planet, when combined with the transit timing variations they revealed a fifth planet in the system, Kepler-139f, which was between the outermost super-Earth and the gas giant.

The discovery of Kepler-139f helped answer a question about Kepler-139c, the outermost super-Earth. Originally, the reports for 139c showed an unusually large density for a sub-Neptune-sized planet. Because the scientists didn’t yet know about 139f, they had attributed some of its pull on its star to 139c. But the new data suggests a more typical density for 139c while leaving the densities for 139d and 139b unchanged. These revisions provide indirect evidence for 139f.

It is possible that there may be other hidden worlds around Kepler-139. For instance, there is a prominent gap between 139b and 139c.

Both Kepler and NASA’s more recent exoplanet hunting mission (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) were sensitive to planets orbiting close to their star. Inner worlds made more transits, which allowed scientists to confirm the planet’s existence. But transiting planets with wider orbits made fewer passes in front of their sun, so they were harder to observe and confirm.

In addition, the radial velocity method tends to find larger planets, because massive worlds tug stronger on their stars. Also, the closer a planet is to its sun, the stronger its tug. That’s why so many of the discovered exoplanets were Jupiter-sized worlds whose orbit only took a few days.

All of these factors mean it’s harder to discover smaller planets that are farther away, especially if they don’t transit their star. But by combining various methods, astronomers can find smaller worlds orbiting farther from their star.

And soon it will be harder for those planets to hide. In 2026, the European Space Agency will launch the Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars (PLATO) mission. It will conduct its own survey of transiting planets, as well as revisit Kepler’s field. By providing additional transit times for planets detected by Kepler more than a decade earlier, PLATO will enable the discovery of more misaligned worlds.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/astronomers-discover-giant-alien-planet-35-times-more-massive-than-earth-hiding-in-a-known-star-system/ar-AA1IE595?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=feaec06498da45f787cb55fd4cd8125e&ei=15

Pluto's Heart

If you paid attention to the data sent back by New Horizons when it zipped by Pluto and Charon, you know that Pluto has a heart-shaped region, which is known as the Tombaugh Regio. The western lobe of the heart-shaped regio was originally named Sputnik Planum but is now known as Sputnik Planitia. It lies mostly in the northern hemisphere, but does extend southward beyond the equator.

The surface of the Sputnik Planitia consists mostly of irregular polygons separated by troughs. The polygons average about 21 miles (33 km) across. The surface also has what appear to be wind streaks, with evidence of sublimation, which is the rapid change from solid to vapor form. Sublimation also appears to be the cause of pits found in the planitia. No craters were detectable by New Horizons, implying the surface is less than 10 million years old.

Most of the ice in this basin is thought to be primarily nitrogen ice, with small fractions of carbon monoxide and methane ices. At Pluto's ambient temperature of 38°K, nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices are much less rigid than water ice, making glacial-like flows possible.

This basin likely originated when something about 125 miles across hit the area. The subsequent hole would have subsequently collected volatile ices. The nature of Pluto's atmosphere means that a topographic depression becomes a cold trap.

Nitrogen ice is denser than water ice, and the accumulation of this much dense nitrogen ice has created a higher level of gravity associated with this area. This gravity anomal may have caused Pluto to reorient itself to put the planitia near the Pluto-Charon tidal axis. Currently, Pluto and Charon always keep their same faces towards each other, and Sputnik Planitia is presently close to the anti-Charon point on Pluto, which has a less than 5% probability of happening by chance.

Contrary to popular belief, Charon does not orbit Pluto. Both Charon and Pluto orbit the same point, which is located between the two of them. Some scientists believe Charon and Pluto are a binary dwarf planet. That's what I think.

I also think there is a case to call Earth and its moon a binary planet, but that's a little harder to convince people, because the point being orbited is within Earth's diameter. What do you think on the subject?

 

 

Astronomy, March 2017, Page 13, "Pluto's Slusky Heart Contains a Large Ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_Planitia

Death Throes

We've all heard that you can't take it with you. Well, scientists have discovered a dying star that is trying very hard to take its entire planetary system with it.

G238-44, a white dwarf located some 86 light-years away, seems determined it is not going alone. It's already made one attempt to end its system. You see, a white dwarf is what results when a star that is up to 8 times the mass of our sun reaches the end of its life. Once that star runs out of material to fuse, it puffs up to red giant size before ejecting its outer material. Then the core collapses to form a dense object that shines bright with the light of residual heat.

This process can put the inner planets right in the middle of that red giant until the outer shell is ejected and the core collapses. Scientists have discovered some planets that appear to have survived being gobbled up by a red giant phase, but not many, and they certainly don't appear to have any atmosphere or water left on them. When our sun hits that stage in a few billion years, the red giant produced could reach as far as Mars.

But we were talking about G238-44, which has reached the white dwarf stage, so it is currently much more dense than it used to be. Scientists studying it have been examining G238-44's atmosphere, and have found a plethora of 'heavy' elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, and iron. Most of these would have come from rocky worlds and inner system asteroids that probably 'survived' the red giant phase. The denser star is pulling them in and eating them.

But the nitrogen—and there seemed to be a lot of it—probably came from frozen worlds and asteroids such as exist in our Kuiper Belt. Apparently, the shift in gravity has perturbed their orbits, and the star is pulling them in and eating them also.

I wonder what the system will look like when all the planets and asteroids have been eaten, and the star cools into a massive hunk of... what? A huge rocky planet? A frozen gas giant with a big rocky core? What do you think it will be?

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/a-dead-star-has-been-caught-ripping-apart-its-planetary-system/ar-AAYGGzI?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnb7Kz 

Hungry, Hungry Jupiter

Back when I was growing up, there was some debate whether Jupiter consisted only of gases, or if it had something more or less solid in the middle of it. At the time, scientists just didn't know. They had no way of seeing past the swirling vortexes of clouds that Jupiter presented to the universe.

Flash through the last few decades, and they finally came up with a way to 'see' past those clouds. NASA's Juno space probe gathered gravitational data about the planet in a variety of locations, and that data, combined with data by Galileo probe, indicates that yes, there is some solidity down in those depths.

The theory of Jupiter's creation is that it gathered vast amounts of gas and dust from what was left after the sun's creation, mainly hydrogen and helium. The more it gathered, the bigger it got, the more gravity it had, and thus the more it gathered.

This new data indicates there is a rich array of heavy elements in the rocky core of the system's biggest planet. Which suggests that Jupiter also gobbled up plenty of planetesimals (or baby planets) while it was gathering materials.

Planetesimals are space rocks spanning several miles, so larger than most of the asteroids. If they had been left alone, they might have grown up into planets. But alas, their fate was to be eaten and become just another piece of a huge planet. Just a bit like bits of gravel eaten by birds to help their digestion.

I hope those 'stones' at least gave Jupiter indigestion for a while.

But at least we now know that Jupiter has a rocky core.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-find-remains-of-baby-planets-swallowed-by-jupiter/ar-AAYHi95?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnb7Kz 

What Size Is It?

Astronomers have been finding more and more planets outside our home system lately. I find that extremely exciting. But when I'm reading about these discoveries, I'm sometimes left wondering, just how big is this newly-discovered planet?

First, let's understand that because of the distances involved, and the methods currently in place for discovering planets, it takes a big planet to be noticed. I don't find that disappointing, because within our own system, we have 4 big planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus), an equal number of smaller planets, and a scattering of dwarf planets. So just because they haven't found lots of Mars- or Venus-sized planets circling other stars, doesn't mean they aren't there.

So, they are finding big planets, but they've developed a short of short-hand lingo to indicate a few tidbits of information just in what they call a new discovery. I recently read an article in Astronomy magazine that briefly explained what this lingo meant.

A Super-Earth sounds exciting, doesn't it? A planet like Earth! Well, up to a point. They are rocky planets like Earth, but remember that they are mostly finding big planets. A Super-Earth can range in size up to 10 times the Earth's mass. That means a lot of gravity, and I don't think we'd be colonizing that size a planet. But they are a rocky planet! Our system is not the only place where rocky planets exist. In fact, these may be the most common type of planet in our galaxy.

Then there are Mini-Neptunes. These ice giants range in size from 14.5 to 17 times the mass of Earth. (Neptune weighs in at 17 times Earth's mass.) These are also pretty common around other stars.

Which brings us to the 'Jupiter' class of planet, which come in 2 types.

A Hot Jupiter is a gas giant that orbits their star in under 10 days. (I can't name them, but I've heard of some that circle their star in a matter of hours.) A Hot Jupiter usually orbits at around 1/10 the distance between the Earth and the sun, or less. These are not common around stars like ours, occurring in only about 1% of systems having a star similar to ours.

A Cold Jupiter is a gas giant that—like our own Jupiter—lies beyond the ice line, where it's too cold for water to remain a liquid. There was no comment given about how common these might be. I assume Saturn is also a Cold Jupiter.

And then there are Brown Dwarfs, which is a type of star, not a planet. But they don't last long as a star, and then they cool off and they're just a big mass. It's not clear where the dividing line is between massive planets and dead brown dwarfs, but it seems to be somewhere around 10 times the mass of Jupiter.

Got that? Good. The next time you read about a newly-discovered planet, you can figure out a little something about it just by what they call it.

Mercury

 I’m sure we all remember Mercury from our school days. It’s the closest planet to the sun, traveling around our local star once every 88 days. Now, I learned—way back when—that Mercury was tidally locked to the sun, meaning that one side was always facing the sun, while the opposite side was forever dark. But such is not the case. It turns out that Mercury spins completely around roughly every 59 Earth days. But because it is also moving around the sun, a day/night cycle is about 176 days long. So it has long days, and short years.

It is the smallest planet of our system... except for the dwarf planets. It is slightly larger than Earth’s moon at 9,525.1 miles around its equator. By the way, Mercury has no tilt to it, so it has no seasons except whatever small differences might occur because its orbit is elliptical and not round. The gravity at its surface is roughly 3/8 that of Earth. So a person weighing 100 pounds on Earth would weigh about 37.5 pounds on Mercury.

Like all the ‘inner’ planets, Mercury is a rocky planet. It’s surface is quite cratered, much like our moon.

It is only 39 million miles from the sun. If you were standing on Mercury, the sun would look 3 times larger than it does on Earth. It would also feel 7 times hotter. The daylight temperature can climb to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. At night, that temperature would plummet to -290 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore, it is not likely that life as we know it would be able to exist there.

That is particularly true because of the atmosphere, what there is of it. It consists of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium and potassium. These are atoms that are thrown up by blasts of the solar winds as well as micrometeor strikes.

The article stated quite bluntly that Mercury has no moons. How lonely it must be. I also wonder, what if it does? In that case, it would need to be very small, or it would have been found by now. But what if there were a pea-sized moon zipping around Mercury? And let’s suppose we eventually sent a manned mission there, to land on the dark side (since the light side is so hot) to bring back Mercury samples. How many spacemen would be killed by that moon zipping through their space suit (and maybe them) before they figured out what was happening? Or would punching through their space suit slow it down enough that it would fall to Mercury’s surface, and they might never figure it out?

Well, I’d have to stop and figure out the physics. And I’m not sure where my physics book is anymore.

 

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mercury

Hadean Eon

Unless you have a degree in geology or paleontology or something similar, you are probably as confused by the various Ages, Eons and Periods that get named when you look anything up about the History of Earth. I decided to take a look at one of them, and see if I could get it figured out as to when it happened, what major events happened during it... that sort of thing.

So, I had a list of these names, and I picked one at random: the Hadean Eon.

Turns out, I had picked the very first of Earth’s Eons; it started with the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago and ended approximately 4 billion years ago. Other names for it are the Priscoan Period and the Pre-Archean Eon.

Obviously, since we are looking at the very first half billion years of the world, we won’t be talking about dinosaurs or super continents. What could there possibly be to discuss? Well, let’s dig in and see what turns up.

First, there’s the name, which gives us a clue about what was going on. ‘Hadean’ comes from Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. And that describes the conditions of what Earth was going through: The planet had just formed and it was very hot due to a number of factors, including frequent collisions with other Solar System bodies.

One important collision happened about 4.5 billion years ago, when a Mars-sized planetoid smashed into the infant Earth. The collision sent quite a lot of material into orbit around Earth, while the planetoid and the rest of Earth merged and tried to settle down. The orbiting material probably took less than a century to form the moon.

The big collision didn’t melt all of the Earth, but a fair fraction of material was vaporized, which created a rock vapor atmosphere around the young planet. But that rock vapor would have condensed out within 2,000 years, and left behind an atmosphere heavy in CO2 with some hydrogen and water vapor.

Apparently, there was a sizable quantity of water in the material that formed the Earth. After the moon was formed, the surface temperature was about 230C (446F), but even so, oceans of liquid water existed. That’s because the atmospheric pressure was over 27 times what it is today, because of the heavy CO2 atmosphere. As cooling continued, most of the CO2 was removed from the atmosphere by subduction and dissolving in ocean water, but the levels oscillated wildly.

One theory posits that between 4.4 and 4.1 billion years ago, the Earth’s climate was relatively cool, allowing for liquid water to be present at least that long. It was even suggested that the Earth may have been pretty much like it is today, except for the absence of flora and fauna.

One of the articles implied that life may have been getting started by the end of the Hadean Eon. But that was almost like a throw-away at the end of the last paragraph, so I’m thinking , one celled organisms? Maybe?

So as far as stories go, what if a spaceship gets too close to a forming star system and gets clobbered by tiny planetoids until it is forced to crash land on the nearest planet, which just happens to be vaguely Earth-like, but the only life it has are some quasi-amoebas swimming in the oceans. Maybe they have plants or seeds aboard, so they can grow some food. What about the stuff they don’t realize they’re carrying? Cockroaches, mice, fungal spores... What would those things evolve into, once there was enough food on the planet for them to successfully venture off the ship? There would be a whole lot of niches in the food chain for them to fill!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadean

OrganPipe Cactus fruit

I have often wondered what kind of food chain there would be in a desert that would allow people to live there. Oh, yes, I’ve heard about certain rats, rabbits, coyotes, snakes, lizards... But the fact is that as you go down the food chain to smaller and smaller creatures, eventually you have to get to plant-life. On Earth, it seems a pretty likely bet, anyway.

I am often disappointed by authors and filmmakers who forget there needs to be some kind of food chain. In my latest viewing of “Dune” - I can’t remember which version of it I was watching - it occurred to me that the people on the planet were apparently colonists, or descendents of colonists. There was much talk about the great worms, with no talk of what they ate. One assumes that there was a mouse species on the planet, but they might have come with the colonists. One assumes there are mice, because the nickname the common people adopt for Paul was the name of a species of mice who fight back. And in one scene, I saw at least 1 beautiful butterfly. Nowhere did I ever see any kind of plantlife out in the wild. So... what did the butterflies, the fierce mice, the worms and the people eat? I don’t know. I don’t remember anything like that being mentioned in the book, either. Sigh.

By comparison, Earth deserts are veritable hotbeds of life. So let’s take a look at another desert food source that I’ve heard about.

The organ-pipe cactus grows in the Sonoran Desert and Baja California. It has a very short trunk, from which dozens of stems grow, producing what one might think of as a bush. Its root system only reaches about 10 cm (4 inches) into the ground, but are sufficient for sucking up monsoon water when it occurs. Otherwise, the plant is pretty water-tight, with a water-proof skin and plenty of thorns to keep from getting eaten. An individual cactus can live 150 years, but doesn’t produce fruit until age 35. Probably because a good growing year will see it add a whopping 2.5 inches a year to its height.

In May and June, the organ-pipe cactus develops white/creamy flowers that only open at night and usually close back up by mid-morning. That doesn’t leave much time for day-time pollinators to get to it, but bats do the job just fine during the night.

Just before the rains come in July and August, the fruit ripens and splits open to reveal bright red flesh surrounding lots of seeds. Or maybe the fruit was red and the inner flesh was purple; I’ve seen it described both ways.

I didn’t find a lot of recipes for preparing organ-pipe cactus fruit. Apparently, you simply mash the fruit flesh and seeds into a sweet paste, which could be eaten as it was. Or you could dry it out to make a spreadable jelly. Another way would be to separate the seeds and place them in storage. Later, you could grind the seeds into a flour to make seed cakes. So, you could have your seed cakes and fruit jelly both!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenocereus_thurberi

www.nps.gov/orpi/learn/nature/organ-pipe-cactus.htm

http://www.ethnoherbalist.com/southern-california-native-plants-medicinal/pitaya-fruit/

A Girl’s Best Friend...

...is a Diamond... Planet?

55 Cancri-e was discovered in 2004, circling a star not that far from us. It was called a “super-Earth”, because it was rocky like the Earth and larger. Its radius is twice Earth’s, making its mass about 8 times ours, while it speeds around its star in only 18 hours. To do that, it has to be so close to the star’s surface that the planet’s surface reaches temperatures around 3,900° F (2,100° C). {Just a little warmer than Nebraska in August.}

{By the way, the ‘e’ of 55 Cancri-e means this was the 4th planet found in orbit around this star. (The star itself is designated A.)The other 3 reside even closer. Where does the star end and planet(s) begin? More recently, a 5th planet - ‘f’ - has been discovered, with a year lasting about 261 Earth days.}

If 55 Cancri-e had a planetary chemistry similar to Earth’s, the temperature and mass might mean it was covered with oozing ‘supercritical fluids’ (gases at such a high pressure they would act more like liquids). So it was imagined, at one time. But further study has revealed that it has a planetary chemistry far different.

For one thing, it apparently has no water on it at all.

Astronomers felt 55 Cancri-e was probably composed almost exclusively of carbon (diamond & graphite), iron, silicon carbide and possibly silicates. More than 1/3 of its mass could be pure diamond, which would be more than the entire Earth. Try sticking that into an engagement ring!

However, the diamond part was probably not just one big chunk. They thought the planet’s surface was covered in graphite and diamond rock, rather than our familiar water and granite. Actually, the Earth has far, far less carbon in comparison. So they tried to figure out what that difference meant. This different planetary chemistry could mean 55 Cancre-e could have had a very different thermal evolution than Earth and strange plate tectonic processes, which would mean bizarre types of volcanism, mountain formation and seismic activity.

But a new analysis indicated that 55 CancriA (the star in question) had more oxygen than previously thought. That might mean 55 Cancri-e might not have quite as much carbon as they had thought. Or it might mean nothing. The processes of star and planet formation are not fully understood, but it is known that the composition of a planet does not always match that of its parent. So the studies continued.

In 2016, observers detected hydrogen, helium and possibly hydrogen cyanide in ‘e’s atmosphere. In 2017, they decided there might be a global ocean... made of lava, so no skinny dipping. And that e’s atmospheric pressure was about 1.4 bar, so a slightly thicker atmosphere than ours.

If all this sounds familiar, well... We visited the 55 Cancri system on or about 6Sept2017, in the 2nd episode of my ‘Weird Planets’ series of blogs. But I think I found more details this time, so hope you enjoyed ‘catching up’.

Oh, yes, in July 2014, the International Astronomical Union launched a process for giving ‘proper’ names to some exoplanets and their host stars. The name selected for 55 CancriA was Copernicus, and e was named Janssen. (Yes, all his known siblings got named, too.)

https://www.space.com/18011-super-earth-planet-diamond-world.html

https://www.space.com/23138-diamond-planet-super-earth-discovery.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Cancri_e

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121011-diamond-planet-space-solar-system-astronomy-science/

https://www.cnet.com/news/hubble-probes-atmosphere-on-diamond-planet/

Be Cool, Star

Unfortunately, I only have 1 reference article for this week’s blog, and it was listed as ‘Opinion’. So, if you don’t already, take this week’s blog with 2-3 grains of salt. I did try to follow the link to the original article in the Astronomical Journal, but I’m not subscribed to it, so couldn’t get past their first page. From the looks of some of the titles listed for their current issue, their articles are seriously geeky, which is why I sometimes have to rely on someone else to explain it to me. Having said all that, hand me an ice cube for my drink, and let’s get started.

NASA’s Spitzer space telescope (launched in 2003) has found 14 of the coldest stars known, but it’s expected that far more are waiting to be discovered. These 14 objects are hundreds of light-years away and are thought to have temperatures 350 to 620 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s bitterly cold for stars.

These are ‘failed stars’, also known as brown dwarfs, which have been known to exist for years. Spitzer and its sister, WISE, could recognize them by the hundreds before too long. Spitzer was assigned specific patches of space to study, but WISE has been tasked with studying the entire sky. WISE’s task is 40 times the size of Spitzer’s.

Brown dwarfs form like any other star, out of collapsing balls of gas and dust. But they are puny things, and never collect enough mass to ignite nuclear fusion and start shining. The smallest known so far are 5 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, and there are giant gas planets of that mass around other stars. Without nuclear fusion, what little internal heat these bodies started with eventually faded away.

It’s possible that WISE could find an object about Neptune-sized (or bigger) in the far reaches of our solar system. Raise your hand if you’ve heard the story of Planet X, a large planet so far out we can’t see it, but it has some disruptive tendencies for the orbits of the outer planets, dwarf planets and other objects we know of. Some scientists speculate it might even be a brown dwarf companion to our sun.

So are these 14 examples of planets or stars? Well, they’re hot for one, and unbelievably cold for the other. I assume someone will decide what they are, eventually.

www.networkworld.com/article/2231137/nasa-finds-14-new--seriously-chilled-stars.html

Weird Planets 12

Good morning! This is the 12th day of your tour, and it’s the last day! So tomorrow you can either rest up or start home, it’s your choice. Now, we do have a number of planets to get through today, so everybody buckle up and let’s get going!

The first one is 51 Pegasi b. Now, don’t ask about the name; they only gave us clues about one naming method, and have completely ignored any other methods that may have been used. Anyway, 51 Pegasi b is gigantic, about half the mass of Jupiter. Yet it completes its orbit in 4 days, so it’s tucked right in close, like so many seem to be. This was the first confirmed exo-planet orbiting a sun-like star, and that’s its claim to fame.

Here is system HR 8799. We aren’t here to see any one planet in this system, but the entire system. This was the first exoplanet system that was directly imaged. As you can see, the system contains a debris disk and 4 massive planets, at least.

Now this - and I keep asking for the name, but they never give it to me - was once called the Oldest Alien Planet. It is 12.7 billion years old, so it formed more than 8 billion years before Earth and only 2 billion years after the Big Bang. Its discovery made people start thinking that planets are very common in the universe and that life may have begun far sooner than anybody had ever imagined. I’m still waiting to hear from one of those civilizations that got started so much earlier than us.

Here we are, only 420 light-years away from Earth, at the Coku Tau-4 system. See the big dusty disk going around the star? Scientists think this system has the universe’s youngest star, less than 1 million years old. They haven’t actually found it yet, but if you look closely, you can see a big hole in that disk. That hole is 10 times the size of Earth’s orbit around the sun, and they surmise it’s been made by this planet cleaning up the dust as it rolls around its orbit.

This is Hat-P-1. Huge, isn’t it? It is 1.76 times bigger than Jupiter, but only has 1/2 Jupiter’s mass. It’s lighter than a ball of cork would be! What’s holding it together? I have no idea. Known as one of the Puffiest Planets known, it could float in water, if it could find a tub big enough.

This Super-Neptune, called Hat-P-11b, is 4.7 times the size of Earth, but has 25 times Earth’s mass. If you weighed 100 pounds on Earth, here you’d weigh 2,500 pounds. Doesn’t sound very inviting to me. And it’s puny star is 3/4 the size of our sun, and cooler. On the other hand, 11b’s orbit is so close to that star, it only takes 4.88 days to complete an orbit, and the surface temperature is around 1100°F. Nope, still doesn’t sound inviting.

Now here’s a fun one. Most planets orbit in the same plane as their star’s equator. But XO-3b’s orbit is at a 37-degree angle to the star’s equator. How did that happen? The only other planet that’s been known to have such a tilted orbit was Pluto. But it got demoted to dwarf planet, and its eccentricities are of no interest anymore. So tilted orbits are an oddity. I’ve heard a rumor that one planet orbits backwards to its star’s rotation. But I don’t know where it is, or else we’d squeeze that in today, too.

Okay, watch carefully, or you’re going to miss this planet. SWEEPS-10 is only 740,000 miles from its parent star. It zips around so fast, a SWEEPS-10 year is only 10 hours long. This puts it in a classification called Ultra Short Period Planets. Those are the fastest planets, where their orbits last less than a day.

Take a good look, this is the last planet of the day, and of our tour. COROT-exo-3b is the densest exoplanet known to man at this time. As you can see, it’s about the same size as Jupiter, but it’s mass is 20 times Jupiter’s. That makes it about twice as dense as lead. But it might not even be a planet. Scientists are also considering the possibility that it’s a brown dwarf, or failed star.

Please watch your step as you disembark. Thank you for taking our tour, and for sticking with it for the entire 12 legs. I know the tour is called ‘Weird Planets’, but actually, this was only a sampling. If we had tried to show you all the weird planets out there, we could be at it for years. Have safe journeys home!

[At last! I don’t know what I’ll be doing next week, but it will probably have nothing to do with planets, weird or not!]

https://www.nasa/gove/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-expoplanets

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 11

Good Morning! Today we'll be visiting some of the Gliese discoveries, and then... well, we'll see if we have the time to visit anything else.

Our first visit is to Gliese 436b, which orbits that faint red dwarf you can probably see in the distance. Gliese 436b is about the size of Neptune, but has a small rocky core, surrounded by ice that makes up the majority of its size. And then 436b has a huge hydrogen cloud surrounding it, a cloud that is approximately 50 times the size of 436b proper. Like a comet, 436b exudes a 'tail' of this hydrogen as it orbits its sun. And finally, despite its icy exterior, this planet has an average temperature around 439 ⁰ C. Some people call this the 'burning ice planet'.

Here is Gliese 581c, which made headlines when its discovery was announced in 2007. This is a super-Earth, with a mass 5 times that of our own. So if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, here you would weigh 500 pounds. Even so, this was one of the first to be announced as a potentially hospitable planet. However, further study revealed that it was 'tidally locked', meaning that one side always faces its parent star. That side would be blistering hot, and the opposite side unbelievably cold. The only possible location that might offer acceptable temperatures would be the 'twilight zone' between day and night, which I'm thinking would possibly experience a lot of wind. So, a fairly thin band of livable area with a lot of wind, and you weigh 5 times what you should. Surely we could find a better place to colonize?

Gliese 581e is in the same system. 581E used to hold the title as the smallest alien planet, but in January 2011, the announcement of Kepler 10b meant 581e lost that title.

Okay, we do have time for a couple more, so let's look at the WASP planets!

WASP 17b is the first planet discovered that orbits in the opposite direction as its host star's rotation. It also currently has the title of 'Most Puffy'. This is because it is the 2^nd largest planet currently known, but its mass is half of Jupiter's. Sounds like a big ball of gas, right?

That brings us to our final system for the day, WASP 47. This is a compact multi-planet system, the only one known to hold a 'hot Jupiter' with close companions.

Now, sit back and relax. We'll be back at the station in a jiffy.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-exoplanets

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 10

Good morning! Congratulations on completing the first 9 installments of your tour. We don’t have as many worlds to visit as yesterday, so there will be ample time to relax. If you want a pillow or beverage, press the blue button on your arm rest, and either CXQ-9 or CXQ-10 will tend to you. Now, if everybody is comfortable, we’ll get started.

Excuse me. I’m sorry to disturb you, but we are entering the system of today’s first planet. If you turn your attention to your viewers, currently on their maximum magnification, you’ll see a small deep-pink blob. This is GJ-504b, the Pink Planet, 57.3 light years from Earth. The dark pink glow of GJ-504b is caused by the remaining heat of its formation. It’s about the same size as Jupiter, but it’s further from its sun than Neptune is from ours. Scientists didn’t think such a large planet could form at that distance because there wouldn’t be enough dust and debris. Your viewers will adjust their magnification as we approach and swing past, so you can get a good look.

Your attention, please. We are now 434 light-years from Earth, approaching planet J1407B, which is described as a ‘Super-Saturn’. It has a mass of 40 Jupiters and 37 rings surround it, spanning 120 million kilometres. That’s about 200 times the size of Saturn’s rings. Some scientists think these rings may be in the process of forming moons, which has them quite excited, since they’ve never seen that happen outside of our solar system. Actually, even within our system, we haven’t seen it happen.

CXQ-9 and -10 will serve brunch as we move on, complete with champagne! Enjoy!

Good afternoon! Your viewers are currently showing KOI-314c, the lightest planet to have both its mass and physical size measured. Rather surprisingly, it has the same mass as Earth, but is 60% larger in diameter. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you will still weigh 100 pounds on KOI-314c. However, the larger diameter seems to indicate a very thick atmosphere. If you look slightly to the left of the planet’s image, you’ll see the red dwarf star that it orbits. This system is about 200 light-years from Earth. Yes, we are already headed back to the tour station.

This is our final viewing for today. This is Epsilon Eridani b, which orbits an orange Sun-like star only 10.5 light years from Earth. Before long, Earth telescopes may be able to photograph it directly. Unfortunately, it is too far from its star to have liquid water or life as we know it. However, I’m going I’ll make a couple low orbits around it and set your viewers on maximum, and you can all try to spot life as we don’t know it!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have returned to the tour station. I hope you have enjoyed your day with Star Tours. Er, I mean, Planet Tours.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/g1265/space-oddities-8-of-the-strangest-exoplanets/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 9

How many are here for Leg 9 of the Weird Planets Tour? All of you? Okay, we’ll get started. Frankly, a lot of people stay in their hotel room for this day. After 8 straight days of viewing planets, they feel they’ve seen all the possibilities. I prefer to think that each planet has something that makes it unique. Everybody secured? Here we go.

Today we’re going to visit planets and systems discovered by the Kepler Telescope, which was the first unit designed and launched specifically to look for xenoplanets. Our first stop is the Kepler-11 system. Take a look; there are at least 5 planets, although sometimes I swear there’s 6. And they’re all packed in real close to their parent star. If this were the Earth system, all of them would be within Mercury’s orbit. And yet, this system is stable; they aren’t playing havoc with each other’s orbits. When this system was first discovered, a lot of scientists revisited the ideas about planet formation. And Kepler-11 also suggested that systems with multiple small planets might be common. It makes the Earth system a little less unique, but ups the possibility that other intelligent beings – or at least life of some kind – will eventually be found.

At about that same time, the Kepler Telescope discovered Kepler-10c, a mega-Earth planet that some called the “Godzilla of Earths”. 10c is 2.3 times the size of Earth, and 17 times heavier. I think that means if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, on 10c you would weigh 1,700 pounds. You couldn’t stand up on 10c. You wouldn’t have enough muscles to do it. Now, 10c has a sibling, Kepler-10b, which is a lava world. We’ll catch a glance of that on our way out. The Kepler-10 system is 570 light years from Earth, and is located in the constellation Draco. Considering the naming practice, there should also be a planet called Kepler-10a. I keep asking about it, but they never add any notes about that planet, if it even exists.

In front of us, you can see a double star. Orbiting around both stars is a circumbinary planet, Kepler-16b, which some have nick-named “Tatooine”. You’ve already visited the other so-called “Tatooine”, haven’t you? In a trinary star system? Yes, that earlier 1 only orbits one of the 3 stars, so the chances of any occupants actually seeing 2 suns setting at the same time are pretty slim, but on Kepler-16b, that could be possible.

Our next planet is Kepler-22b. Yes, ma’am, I’m sure there were discoveries between 16 and 22, but they haven’t given me any information on them. They carefully pick which planets to have you view. I’m afraid we couldn’t possibly visit every planet that’s been discovered. At this point, there are thousands of them, and it would take years, even if we managed several in 1 day.

The next planet is Kepler-22b. This planet is in its system’s habitable zone, and could possibly be an actual water world, which we don’t have in Earth’s system.

A short hop away is the Kepler-36 system. Do you see the 2 planets? Just 2, and their orbits are extremely close to each other. At their closest, the distance between them is 1.2 million miles, which is only 5 times the distance between the Earth and her moon. That might make colonizing easier than Earth had in colonizing Mars.

And now we skip all the way to Kepler-186f. Does anything look familiar about this planet? Some people think there is, even if they can’t say what. Kepler-186f was the first rocky planet found in the habitable zone, so the temperature is right for liquid water. It’s also very close in size to Earth. It always makes me want to land and see what might live there. But we have to keep moving, or we’ll never get done.

Here we have the Kepler-444 system, the oldest known planetary system. Here we have no less than 5 terrestrial-sized planets, all in orbital resonance. This group shows that solar systems have formed and existed in our galaxy for nearly its entire life.

Kepler-452b is the first Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. So it might look even more familiar than 186f did. 452b is only 60% larger than Earth, and 5% further from its star. Following our earlier logic, if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, here you would weigh 160 pounds, which would be tiring, but do-able. And if a typical day on Earth got to 100°, here it might get to 95°. But there are a lot of things that have an influence on a planet’s temperature, so I’m not absolutely certain of that last statement. Still, at first glance, it certainly sounds inviting.

And now, just one last pause on our way back to the station. As you may know, the Kepler Telescope developed a technical problem, which scientists ‘fixed’, sort of, but its mission had to be modified to accommodate its somewhat limited capability. At that point, they stopped using ‘Kepler’ in the naming ritual and started using ‘K2’, to indicate these discoveries were made after its mission was modified.

This is the K2-3 system. We’re a bit late getting back, so we won’t stop here long. K2-3 has 3 super-Earths in orbit. If you check today’s pamphlet, the mass and radius of each is listed. The home office keeps promising to include updates on their atmosphere compositions, so if you see that information, I’d appreciate you letting me know.

And here we are. I apologize for a long day, but Leg 9 always takes longer than the home office thinks it should. Have a pleasant evening and get a good night’s sleep.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-exoplanets

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 8

Good morning. I am your replacement driver and tour guide. Your previous driver, um, has been... has been asked to stay home today.

Hope you had a large breakfast, because we’re going to visit several ‘HD’ systems on this leg, and it could be a long time until supper. Everybody buckled in? If not, get that way, ‘cause we’re headed out.

Okay, on the right side is HD 106906 b. It’s 11 times the size of Jupiter. Yes, it does have a parent star. It’s one of those bright bits of light ahead of us. This planet’s distance from its star is 650 times as Earth’s distance from our sun, so I can’t blame you for asking. Despite being so remote from its star, the average temperature on the surface is 1500° Celsius, which is 2,732° Fahrenheit. That’s pretty toasty warm, in my mind. Scientists say it shouldn’t exist at all, being so large and so far from its parent. Where did it get enough material that far out? But however it came to exist, it’s only 13 Million years old. Just a baby, really, since the universe is over 14 Billion years. So maybe it just hasn’t had a chance to cool off since it came into being?

Now, right over here is Osiris, more formally known as HD 209458 b, which was the first planet to be seen as it crossed in front of its star. It’s also the first planet to have its light directly detected. Its discovery showed that transit observations were possible, which opened up a whole new realm of exoplanet discovery.

The planet ahead of us is HD 189733 b. It’s about the size of Jupiter, and has been studied quite a bit ever since scientists discovered it transiting its star while they studied that star using X-ray frequencies. This is also one of the first planets to have its atmosphere ‘sniffed’ to determine its composition. I don’t remember the full list, but I do remember that the atmosphere contains methane. No, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s cows on that planet. Methane can be produced naturally. It doesn’t have to be a biological byproduct.

Now we come to HD 114762 b, which was discovered in 1989. This is the first discovered planet to be orbiting a sun-like star. However, because its mass is - as seems so popular - 11 times that of Jupiter, and because it only takes 84 days to complete an orbit, it was initially thought to be a brown dwarf. But it’s not. As a comparison, tiny little Mercury takes 88 days to complete an orbit around our sun.

I have to ask you to please be quiet as I approach this one. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t even bother with this one. Too dangerous, if you ask me; you never quite know what to expect from HD 80606 b. It’s orbit is so eccentric-- Oh! Hang on! ... Whew! That was close. I think we’ll be safe now, at least for a few minutes. Besides its highly eccentric orbit, HD 80606 b also displays plenty of storms and atmospheric heating, and you can plainly see how fast it rotates.

Okay, that’s our tour for today. I’ll take you back to base so you can get some supper. I know I’m ready for it. No, I’m sorry, I don’t know who will be your next driver and tour guide. No, I don’t know where you’ll be taken, either. From the looks of it, you still have quite a number of planets to visit. We are all qualified drivers and tour guides, ma’am, otherwise, we wouldn’t have the job.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-exoplanets

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 7

We are about to start our whirl-wind tour of some of the remaining weird planets, but first, please pay attention to the following non-safety-related information:

Who designed the way stars and planets are named? I’ve more or less figured out how it works, but it really doesn’t give you any information about that star or planet. First, there’s some designation that I think indicates who/what ‘discovered’ the star. I recognize ‘Kepler’, which in its 2^nd stage of life is denoted as ‘K2’. But WASP? CaRoT? No Idea. Then comes a number to designate the star. And finally, a letter to designate the planet within that star’s system. The planets are lettered as they are found, so smaller planets probably have later letters than big planets, even if they are closer to that star.

Please keep your hands and legs inside this blog at all times, as I am both driver and tour guide, and we have a lot of space to cover!

The first planet we’ll visit in this 3^rd leg of our tour is PSR J1719-14 b (AKA the Sun Hugger), which is only 3,900 light-years from Earth. This is a possible member of the diamond-planet family (I told you about one of those in an earlier blog), and it races around its star in only 2.2 Earth hours, which makes it the fastest planet in the Ultra-Short-Period-Planet category. Also, it’s a pulsar planet, because its star is a pulsar.

Now, out the other window, take a peek at PSR J1719-1438-?, another pulsar planet orbiting a pulsar 4,000 light-years from Earth. Scientists think this planet was once a star, but when its companion became a pulsar, the huge gravity field stripped most of it away, leaving it with only the mass of Jupiter, and exerted pressure on what was left to make it a diamond planet.

Now around here – somewhere – we can see the PSR B1257+12 system discovered in 1992 and 1994. These pulsar planets at one time were the smallest planetary bodies known to exist outside our own solar system.

Here we’ve reached 12,400 light years from Earth to view PSR 1620-26 b (AKA Methuselah). As you might have guessed, it got its nickname by being old. Too old, some say, because it’s 13 billion years in age, almost 3 times as old as Earth! It would have formed less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang, even though it was thought there wasn’t enough material (I assume they mean heavier elements) to create a core for a planet. So, what’s it made of? I don’t know, they didn’t say. At that distance, maybe they can’t tell. So how do they know how old it is? Do you suppose they counted its wrinkles? J

Okay, you can take a little break now while I get us in another section of the universe.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/g1265/space-oddities-8-of-the-strangest-exoplanets/

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-exoplanets

Weird Planets 6

Some of these planets look familiar, which is how they get their nicknames. Is it a surprise that someone has imagined planets similar to actual exoplanets?

HD 188753 is sometimes called Tatooine. It is a Jupiter-sized planet located 149 light-years away from us… in a triple star system. One list explained that this meant the planet orbited a star, which orbited another star, which orbited a third star. They could be right that HD 188753 is set up this way, but it is not the only configuration available to 3 stars and 1 planet. How many other configurations can you come up with?

Whatever the configuration of this system, the gravitational fields would be complex, so scientists were surprised to find planets could be created in such a gravity maelstrom. Dr Maciej Konacki of CalTech feels the view from this planet would be spectacular, with ‘occasional’ triple sunsets. Yes, that’s possible; it depends on the distance between the triplet stars. Some ‘companion’ stars are so far apart that each appears as only a bright point to the other. But this Tatooine would definitely be hot; it completes an orbit around its star in 3.5 Earth days, so it is snuggled up real close.

CoRoT-7b was the first exoplanet to be dubbed a ‘Super Earth’. That means it’s a rocky planet, not a gaseous one. Knowing that other rocky planets exist, scientists can look for potentially habitable planets that reside in a star’s ‘Goldilocks’ zone.

However, this particular planet does not look like a pleasant place, as it is tidally locked to its star, meaning the same side always faces the star, and the temperature on that face is around 4,000° F. If you want to visit, consider that it may be the rocky core of a vaporized gas giant where it rains rocks. Be sure you take a strong umbrella with you!

Kepler-10b is the first rocky planet discovered by the Kepler equipment. It is the smallest known exoplanet; an Earth-sized world that may have a lava ocean on its surface. I love a hot tub, but that’s too hot.

OGLE-2005-BLG-390 is the first ‘cold super Earth’ exoplanet discovered, nicknamed Hoth. The thought is that it began to accumulate a Jupiter-like core of rock and ice, but didn’t stop with just a core. It is 5.5 times the mass of Earth, has a surface temperature of -364° Fahrenheit, and orbits a red dwarf star some 28,000 light-years away.

Well, on this trip, we’ve gone from Tatooine to Hoth. Have we gotten all the ‘extremes’ done? I’m not sure. But next week, we’ll start zipping through the planets that only appeared on 1 list. Bring your seat belt!

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-exoplanets

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 5

Now we begin exploring the exo-planets that only appeared on 2 of the 4 lists. Does it seem like this series will never end? Cheer up; the process will get faster. The fewer lists that contained a particular planet, the less information I have to pass on to you. I’d like to get through several planets today, so let’s get started.

Earth Jr is only 20 light years away. It’s official name is Gliese 581d. Actually, there may be 2 planets around the same star, but only 581d is mentioned on both lists. 581g was a ‘shiny thing’ that briefly appeared in the same paragraph on the first list.

Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star located in the Libra constellation, and 581d sits on the outer edge of the Goldilocks zone, so it would be possible for water there to be liquid. In addition, the atmosphere produces a significant greenhouse effect, making it even more hospitable for life (more or less) as we know it. It is, however, 8 times the mass of Earth, so do you think any creatures living there would be Big and Strong? Or Short and Strong? I can’t decide, myself, and I assume it would depend - at least in part - on the biochemistry of the creatures.

If it exists, Gliese 581g sits in the middle of that same habitable zone. Some research says it does exist, other research says it doesn’t. This is only 20 light years away, so let’s go find out, shall we?

WASP-18b is 325 light years away. But since we don’t yet have light-speed travel, we aren’t likely to get there before it dies. Some scientists think it should have already died, before we ever got a glimpse of it. WASP-18b races around its sun in less than 24 hours, but its orbit is apparently degrading, so it’s getting closer and closer to its sun, and in 1 million years (or less?), it will plunge into that star.

WASP-12b is 870 light-years from us. I don’t think we’ll want to settle there, for it is rather warm - 4000°F or 2250°C. It sits only 2 million miles from its sun (Earth is 93 million miles from our sun), and takes just over 1 Earth day to make a complete orbit of that star. It’s also a gaseous planet, with 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter and about twice Jupiter’s size. Obviously, it’s less dense than Jupiter, right? So, even less chance that in all that gas there would be anyplace solid to build a new home. And can you imagine the air conditioning bill?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/g1265/space-oddities-8-of-the-strangest-exoplanets/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 4

TrES-2b is called the Dark World. Sounds like a world Sith Lords would be attracted to, right? It’s a gas giant the size of Jupiter. And it is black, to match the Sith Lords’ hearts.

Dark World is 750 light years from us. It orbits its star at a mere 3 million miles (Earth is 93 million miles from the sun), but TrES-2b is darker than pure coal or the blackest paint. It turns out that the Dark World reflects only 1% of the light that falls on it. So as we approached it, we’d see a black ball of gas, possibly with a slight red glow to it, according to one scientist.

Why is it so dark? Nobody knows, but there are some theories:

1. It has no reflective clouds due to its high temperature. All the gas giants in our system have plenty of clouds, so they reflect quite a bit of light. But a gas giant without clouds? Would that make it transparent? I’m thinking it is highly unlikely that the only gases making up any planet are clear. Iodine gas is dark purple, nitrogen dioxide is dark brown, and Trifluoronitrosomethane (I have no idea what this is or how it’s made, but apparently it’s a gas) is deep blue. That doesn’t get us to black, but what I’m saying is, How would it manage to be absolutely clear? I suppose if it was clear, most of the light would go through it and come out the other side.

But, even without a rocky core, the deeper the light goes into the gas giant, the more gravity it is subjected to. I remember from physics classes that light has properties of both waves and particles, so I’m thinking the light would get bent as it traveled through. Would that act as a prism and produce a rainbow as it came out the other side? Would we be able to see such an effect from here? I don’t know. That is a long distance, and there’s no atmosphere (to speak of) between us and it to let us see any such rainbow.

2. The dark world’s atmosphere contains chemicals that absorb light. My resident chemist being out of the house right now, I tried to google what chemicals might do that. Chlorophyll and other organic compounds absorb light, but they usually specialize. Around 2015, some biochemists learned to manipulate cholorophyll’s atomic structure so it would absorb different colors, and they got the entire range of visible light absorbed. Their inspiration was nature; a tiny creature called a sea squirt had bacteria and microbes that - between them - absorbed every bit of visible light that hit the squirt. So I suppose this is possible, but wouldn’t the planet need to be totally covered in varieties of cholorophyll, which is an organic substance. My resident chemist says that ‘organic doesn’t necessarily mean it has anything to do with life.’ Well, on Earth, cholorophyll is found in plants, bacteria and microbes, so it looks like cholorophyll has something to do with life here. Would the same be true for The Dark World?

3. It has a chemical we haven’t thought of yet. This one also seems mildly possible. I find it very difficult to comment on it, because if we haven’t even thought of this chemical, how would we have any idea what its properties are?

4. I think The Dark World is made of Dark Matter. I know, I know, Dark Matter can’t be seen, and we can (barely) see the Dark World. Maybe it’s got a bit of regular matter mixed in. I don’t really know much about Dark Matter (not enough physics classes recently), it just sounds really cool. And really, really dark. Like the Dark World!

So, which theory do you like? Now, using that theory, imagine a story where humans arrive at The Dark World to explore. It is, apparently, one of a kind. Or at least, weird.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/g1265/space-oddities-8-of-the-strangest-exoplanets/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html