10 of the strangest exoplanets in the universe

July 8, 2018 by MIKE COLAGROSSI



55 Cancri e, or "Hellfire Earth". All pictures nasa.gov.

Exoplanets are planets that lie beyond our own solar system and revolve around other stars many light years away. In the past two decades, thousands have been discovered, most of them with NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. Many of these planets take the namesake of this telescope – the Kepler-10b was one of the first confirmed terrestrial planets to be discovered outside of our solar system. It is incredibly close to its star the Kepler 10. The discovery of this planet excited scientists as it was the first confirmation of an exoplanet.

Geoff Marcy, a pioneering scientist in exoplanets declared the discovery: "as among the most profound scientific discoveries in human history... it is a bridge between the gas giant planets we've been finding and the earth itself.”

NASA's Kepler mission has already identified more than 5,000 potential exoplanets – with the discoveries expected to continue to grow over time.

These many newly discovered worlds come in a variety of material and orbits. Some are gargantuan gas worlds that dwarf Jupiter. Others, rocky and icy barely skidding past their roaring suns. NASA and other space agencies are interested in discovering a variety of planets, but one such kind has also sparked their interest – planets within the habitable zone where liquid water oceans could be formed. The boundaries of what’s habitable and what’s even possible in the universe seem to change every day. Strange compositions we thought impossible are being discovered all the time and with an average estimate of 1 trillion planets in just our galaxy alone, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.

More:
https://bigthink.com/mike-colagrossi/10-of-the-strangest-exoplanets-in-the-universe