Check Out Some of the Strangest Alien Planets Believed to be Found:
The Smallest
This artist's concept of Kepler-10b shows the
smallest known exoplanet, announced in January 2011.
The Former Champ
Gliese 581 e used to hold the title of smallest
alien planet. However, it was dethroned in January 2011, with the announcement
of Kepler-10b.
The Biggest
The
largest exoplanet ever discovered is also one of the strangest and
theoretically should not even exist, scientists say. Dubbed TrES-4, the planet
is about 1.7 times the size of Jupiter and belongs to a small subclass of
so-called puffy planets that have extremely low densities. The planet is
located about 1,400 light years away from Earth and zips around its parent star
in only three and a half days.
Closest Alien World to Us
Epsilon Eridani b orbits an orange Sun-like star
only 10.5 light years away from Earth. It is so close to us telescopes might
soon be able to photograph it. It orbits too far away from its star to support
liquid water or life as we know it, but scientists predict there are other
stars in the system that might be good candidates for alien life.
This planet, CoRoT-7b, was the first confirmed
rocky world outside our solar system, but it doesn't look like a particularly
pleasant place to live. It is tidally locked to its parent star, sees hellish
4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 degrees Celsius). It may also rain rocks and be
the core of a vaporized gas giant.
Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine in Star
Wars had two suns, but that’s paltry compared to a Jupiter-like planet 149
light-years from Earth. This planet has three suns, with the main star similar
in mass to our own sun. The triple-star system is known as HD 188753. Like
Tatooine, the planet there is likely pretty hot – it orbits very close to the
main star, completing one orbit every 3.5 days.
With a surface temperature of -364 degrees
Fahrenheit (-220 degrees Celsius), the extrasolar planet known as
OGLE-2005-BLG-390L b is likely the coldest alien world. It is about 5.5 times
as massive as Earth and thought to be rocky. It orbits a red dwarf star about
28,000 light-years away, making it the most distant exoplanet currently known.
A planet called WASP-12b is the hottest planet ever
discovered (about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,200 degrees Celsius), and
orbits its star closer than any other known world. It orbits its star one every
Earth day at a distance of about 2 million miles (3.4 million km). WASP-12b is
a gaseous planet, about 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter, and almost twice the
size. It is 870 light-years from Earth.
Astronomers are finding many worlds now in a
category of worlds called Super-Earths, which are between 2 and 10 times the
mass of our own Earth. Some scientists think such worlds could be more
susceptible to forming the conditions for life because their cores are hot and
would be conducive to geological upheaval through volcanism and plate tectonics.
The oldest known planet is a primeval world 12.7
billion years old that formed more than 8 billion years before Earth and only 2
billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery suggested planets are very
common in the universe and raised the prospect that life began far sooner than
most scientists ever imagined.
The youngest exoplanet yet discovered is less than
1 million years old and orbits Coku Tau 4, a star 420 light-years away.
Astronomers inferred the planet’s presence from an enormous hole in the dusty
disk that girdles the star. The hole is 10 times the size of Earth’s orbit
around the Sun and probably caused by the planet clearing a space in the dust
as it orbits the star.
A planet lighter than a ball of cork is one of the
puffiest alien planets known to date. Called HAT-P-1, the planet is about half
as massive as Jupiter but about 1.76 times wider-or 24 percent larger than
predicted by theory. It could float in water, if there was a tub large enough
to hold it.
While Neptune has a diameter 3.8 times that of
Earth and a mass 17 times Earth's, the new world (named HAT-P-11b) is 4.7 times
the size of Earth and has 25 Earth masses. The newfound world orbits very close
to its star, revolving once every 4.88 days. As a result, it is baked to a
temperature of around 1100 degrees F. The star itself is about three-fourths
the size of our Sun and somewhat cooler.
Most planets orbit in a plane that corresponds to
their parent star's equator. But XO-3b orbits with a crazy tilt of 37 degrees
from its star's equator. The only other known example of such an oddly angled
orbit was Pluto, until its demotion to dwarf planet status. There is, however,
a planet known to orbit backwards around its parent star.
SWEEPS-10 orbits its parent star from a distance of
only 740,000 miles, so close that one year on the planet happens every 10
hours. The exoplanet belongs to a new class of zippy exoplanets called
ultra-short-period planets (USPPs), which have orbits of less than a day.
The extrasolar planet GJ 1214b is a rocky planet
rich in water that sits about 40 light-years away. It orbits a red dwarf star.
It is the only known "Super-Earth" exoplanet — worlds that have
masses between Earth and Neptune — with a confirmed atmosphere. The planet is
about three times the size of Earth and about 6.5 times as massive. Researchers
think it is likely a water world with a solid center.
Astronomers have been able to detect the atmospheres
around several exoplanets, including HD 189733b – one of the first alien words
to have its atmosphere sniffed to determine its composition. Glowing methane,
which can be produced naturally or be a biological byproduct, has been detected
on the planet.
Endangered World
When astronomers observed WASP-18b, they may have
seen it in the cosmic moment before its death. This planet, possibly an
ill-fated world, whips around its star in less than one Earth day. Scientists
think that this speed coupled with the planet's heft yields strong
gravitational tugs that can alter the planets orbit. If the planet orbits
faster than its star spins, it should gradually be moving inward towards its
sun, and its doom.
One of the several planets within the Gliese 581
star system, called Gliese 581 d, may be one of the most potentially habitable
alien worlds known. It is about 8 times the mass of Earth, and located in an
orbit just right for liquid water to exist on the surface. Water is a key
ingredient for life as we know it. Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star 20.5
light-years from Earth
One of the densest exoplanet to date is a world
known as COROT-exo-3b. It is about the size of Jupiter, but 20 times that
planet’s mass, making it about twice as dense as lead. Scientists have not
ruled out that the COROT-exo-3b may be a brown dwarf, or failed star.
Source: Space
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