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Astronomers discover a water planet doomed to be DEVOURED by Its own star
Astronomers discovered the exoplanet HD 176071 b without using the usual transit method. Instead, they tracked how the light reflected off its day side and night side changed throughout its orbit, since the planet is tidally locked and always shows the same face to its star. This ocean world orbits so close to its star that a full “year” lasts just 14 hours, and extreme tidal forces are dragging it toward a fiery fate: being swallowed by its own star. At 2.5 times Earth’s size but 8.5 times its mass, calculations suggest up to 50% of this planet could be water. It’s literally in hot water both physically and figuratively.…
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The 5 Strangest Exoplanets in the Universe | James Webb Telescope
Imagine a planet where it rains molten iron. Another where sunrise and sunset are so different they feel like two separate worlds. One that orbits the remains of a dead star and might rain diamonds. And another that could be entirely covered by a global ocean — with a chemical signal that, on Earth, is produced almost exclusively by life. This isn’t science fiction. These are real planets, light-years away, currently being studied with some of the most advanced telescopes ever built, including the James Webb Space Telescope. In this article, we walk through the five strangest and most fascinating exoplanets discovered so far, backed by verified data and the…
