10 Strangest Planets & Stars In Our Galaxy

"Space is a weird place - how weird? Well, how’s planets made out of solid diamond and burning ice strike you as weird?"

- The Infographics Show

10 Strangest Planets & Stars In Our Galaxy is a video on the Infographics Show exploring outer space discoveries of some of the strangest planets and stars that even amaze scientists; from rocky atmospheres to hot ice.

Synopsis
We've only just begun to scratch the surfaces of outer space but there is one thing we definitely already know, space is no place for humans! Check out today's galactic new video about some of the strangest planets in the galaxy! Find out what makes these particular planets so weird, and terrifying right now!

Transcript
Space is a weird place - how weird? Well, how’s planets made out of solid diamond and burning ice strike you as weird? Here’s 10 of the weirdest planets out there.

10. Every Day A Birthday

Here on Earth, you have to wait until you’re 21 to drink legally, if you lived on Wasp-18b, though, that wouldn’t be much of a problem, as you’d only be waiting 21 days until you were legally able to drink. Located 410 light years from Earth, Wasp-18b is only about 1.9 million miles (3.1 million km) from its parent star, and its orbital velocity is so great that it zips around its star in less than 24 hours. Wasp-18b moves so fast because of its incredible proximity to its sun. The closer you are to a source of gravity, the stronger the pull of that gravity on you. Therefore, for a planet to remain in orbit and not get swallowed up by its sun, it has to generate sufficient speed to overcome the gravitational force of the sun. So basically, the closer you get to a star, the faster you have to move, or you’ll end up falling into that star. Likewise, the further away you are, the slower you need to go to maintain a stable orbit.

Of course, living on Wasp-18b would be a bit of a problem unless you were in a space habitat above the planet, because Wasp-18b is 10 times Jupiter’s size, and just barely falls under the category of a brown dwarf, commonly thought of as “failed stars” because they didn’t get big enough to start fusion at their cores or get their own reality TV shows. Also, due to tidal forces acting on the planet, it’ll eventually fall into its own sun, giving anyone living in its orbit the worst sunburn in the universe. Speaking of speed and sunburn, the next planet has both to spare.

9. Whiplash and Sunburn All At Once

Weather can be unpredictable here on Earth, with the best weatherman barely able to tell you what the next week is going to be like. However, weather on HD 80606 b is pretty predictable – if not the most extreme in the galaxy. While at one point in its orbit you’ll be enjoying balmy, Earthlike summer weather, just a few weeks later you’ll be cranking up the AC to hyper-maximum as the temperatures soar to thousands of degrees. That’s because HD 80606 b has a very eccentric orbit, resulting in an elliptical orbital path that dips it to just under three million miles at its closest to its sun, to 82 million miles at its furthest.

This eccentric orbit led to scientists measuring a temperature change of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (500 C) to 2200 degrees (1200 C) in just six hours. Such severe temperature swings lead to “shock wave storms” that propel superheated winds at 15 times the speed of sound, absolutely shredding anything that might get in their way. Scientists believe that the influence of another star 1,000 astronomical units away – or 1,000 times the distance from sun to the Earth – is to blame for the extreme orbit, which is also inclined 90 degrees in a similar fashion to Halley’s Comet in our own solar system.

This next planet would make you and ever descendant you have until the end of time rich beyond your wildest dreams – if it doesn’t kill you instantly.

8. Galactic El Dorado

The legend of El Dorado tells of a secret city made of pure gold, worth trillions to whoever could find it and plunder its riches. Turns out, our galaxy has something much like that – only on the size of an entire planet. Also, it’s not made of gold – but pure diamond. PSR J171901438b, which we’ll just call 1438b for now if you don’t mind, is without a doubt one of the strangest objects in the sky. Also, it’s worth more than all the wealth generated by mankind in all of history. But before you can even think about landing on a planet made out of diamond, you have to contend with its parent star.

This planet’s star is actually a neutron star, or the remnants of a supermassive star that could’ve been as much as 25 times the size of our own sun. At some point, this giant star blew its top in a massive supernova explosion, leaving behind its superdense core. How dense? A single teaspoon of a neutron star’s material would weigh a billion tons here on Earth. Stray too close into this star’s gravity field and you’ll never leave it again – so landing on 1438b is probably not an option. Even if you did manage to land on 1438b though, its parent star isn’t done trying to murder you.

That’s because the star is also a pulsar, or a neutron star that emits beams of concentrated radiation so powerful, scientists at first believed pulsars to be alien navigation beacons guiding their ships through intergalactic space. Most pulsars have a rotational speed of just a few seconds, washing everything in reach with intense radiation dozens of times a minute. However, millisecond pulsars make regular pulsars look like they’re not even trying. These stars can rotate in a matter of milliseconds, with the fastest recorded pulsar rotating in 1.6 milliseconds. 1438b’s star isn’t quite that fast, but it still rotates about 10,000 times per minute, basically machinegunning the surface of 1438b with extreme radiation that even the best shielded space suit won’t save you from. So, you can basically forget about striking it rich with the Milky Way’s very own El Dorado.

But how did this diamond planet form? Scientists believe that 1438b was once as large as Jupiter, but had its outer layers blasted away by its pulsar parent star. The core of the planet, primarily composed of carbon, was left behind, which under extreme pressure would have solidified to a diamond or a diamond-like material. Given that any part of the planet survived 1438b’s parent star’s supernova phase, it’s likely that this diamond planet was an extrasolar capture, flung out of orbit around its home system and “caught” by the mighty pulsar that now guards its unfathomable riches.

The universe is old, but our next duo of planets just might be the youngest ever spotted by mankind.

7. Baby Planets

The galaxy is an old place, about 13.5 billion years, or just 300 million years older than the universe itself. However, the Milky Way is basically still an infant, and planetary formation is still an ongoing process that we can, for the first time, witness right here from Earth. First imaged in 2018, PDS 70b and C were identified as protoplanets shortly after their discovery. Planets are born from the slow accretion of material surrounding a star. Electrostatic forces begin to clump up material, similar to the way static electricity can make your hair stand on end when you rub it with a balloon. At a certain point, gravity takes over the attraction process and the planet-to-be grows larger as it pulls in more and more material towards itself. Once it has fully cleared its orbital path of debris, the planet is considered officially “born” – which is why Pluto is not a planet anymore. Sorry, not sorry.

However, images of PDS 70b and C made it difficult to actually see the planets in formation. That’s thanks to the thick clouds of dust and gas still surrounding the growing planets. Then, in 2020, astronomers figured out a way to image the planets through their star’s interference and the debris that surrounded them, giving humanity a baby picture of two Jupiter-like gas giants in formation, and making them some of the youngest planets ever discovered.

Our next planet has scientists buzzing with excitement, because it just might hold extraterrestrial life.

6. Waterworld, Not Starring Kevin Costner

Not too long ago we used to think that water, which is so abundant on our planet, was rare in the galaxy. Then we discovered that our own solar system was lousy with it – even discovering it inside craters on Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. If that wasn’t enough, the discover of GJ 1214b should end anyone’s doubts that water is pretty abundant across the universe, which is great news for the possibility of alien life. Known as a “waterworld”, GJ 1214b is believed to be completely covered by water, thanks to measurements of its density being very close to the density of water.

A thick, humid atmosphere envelops the planet, which is somewhere in size between the Earth and Uranus, and a lot clearer than the latter. GJ 1214b is believed to have formed far out from its parent star where water ice was abundant, and then gradually pulled in closer to its star where it rests now. Due to the abundance of water and scarcity of rock on this planet, scientists predict we could discover all kinds of exotic materials such as “hot ice” or “superfluid water”.

On our next planet, temperatures get so hot that the clouds are made of rock.

5. Rock Atmosphere

You heard that right, our next strange planet has an atmosphere made of rock. Well, vaporized rock. Corot-7b was discovered way back in 2010, and at the time was one of the smallest planets discovered. 70 percent larger than the Earth and 4.8 times Earth’s mass, that still makes Corot-7b a pretty big boy – or super Earth. However, you can forget about Corot-7b for being super-habitable, because it’s super-not unless you enjoy temperatures that can melt steel and breathing in vaporized rocks.

60 times closer to its parent star than the Earth, Corot-7b experiences temperatures so extreme that its rocky core actually vaporizes into a thin atmosphere, which is then inevitably blasted away by its sun. Over the course of its lifetime, the planet – which is believed to be the remnants of a Saturn-sized planet – has had as much as several Earth masses of material already vaporized and blown away into space. A long time ago, Corot-7b was likely much further away from its sun, but as it lost mass it migrated closer to its sun, sealing its ultimate fate. Over time, the entire planet may disintegrate away until no evidence of its existence is left.

Our next planet is actually hotter than some stars.

4. Planet with Dreams of Being a Star

At a certain point it gets very difficult to tell the difference between a planet and a star, and no planet yet discovered pushes the boundaries of that direction quite like Kelt-9b. At twice the size of Jupiter, this massive planet is already big enough to enter star territory, but it’s the incredible temperature of the planet that really makes you consider if Kelt-9b is in fact, a planet. Receiving 44,000 times more energy from its sun that we do from ours, Kelt-9b has a daytime temperature of 7,800 degrees (4300 C), which is hotter than the surface of some stars.

Tidally locked to its star, the way the moon is to us, Kelt-9b is in a polar orbit, whizzing over its star’s poles every 36 hours. Given its rotation and orbital speed, Kelt-9b actually experiences two summers and two winters per 36 hour “year”, which each season lasting just the hours. For those viewers of ours getting ready for summer break from school, imagine if your vacation only lasted a measly four hours and be glad you don’t live on Kelt-9b. Also because, you know, you’d be instantly vaporized by the star-like temperatures.

Our next planet is without a doubt, the most beautiful ever discovered.

3. If You Liked It You Should’ve Put Several Thousand Rings On It

Saturn is the absolute crown jewel of the solar system, with its beautiful ring system, the planet is awe inspiring and never fails to wow every time scientists release new photos of it. However, while Saturn may be the cock-of-the-wilk in our solar system, there’s a planet out there that is overcompensating so hard, it makes Saturn look like an intergalactic Walmart jewelry counter. J1407b is a brown dwarf, or failed star, that’s bigger than Jupiter. However, what’s truly incredible about this planet is the massive ring system that surrounds it, spanning out to a distance of 74 million miles (120 million km) – or nearly 2/3 the distance of the Earth to the sun.

It’s ring system is 200 times larger than Saturn’s and contains as much as an entire Earth’s mass in dust particles. Astronomers have already identified one gap in the massive ring system, which is almost certainly the formation of a moon somewhere in size between Earth and Mars. Over the next few million years this impressive ring system will slowly fade from view as more moons form out of all the collected dust – which means if humanity wants to see one of the most stunning sights in the universe for itself, it better start inventing faster than light travel like yesterday.

Our next planet was a candidate for advanced alien life so good, that scientists immediately radioed it hoping to make contact with E.T.

2. Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

In 2007, the discovery of Gliese 581c excited astronomers and scientists around the world on the hunt for alien life. Only a few masses larger than our own Earth, Gliese 581c is smack dab inside its star’s habitable zone – meaning that liquid water is possible on the surface. With such similarities, surely there’s a good chance Gliese 581c may be habitable. However, closer examinations of this planet revealed that it was tidally locked to its parent star, and orbits so close that the daytime side would be a scorching hellscape, while the nighttime side would be a frozen wasteland.

However, along a thin band of terrain between the two extremes, where the land is bathed in a perpetual sunset, temperatures are believed to be moderate enough to allow liquid water, and thus life. Unfortunately, the huge temperature differences would mean that weather would be very extreme on Gliese 581c, so if life does exist it better have some way of withstanding hurricane-force winds every single day. This would not bode well for technologically advanced life, though SETI scientists beamed a hello message to the planet anyways, which won’t reach any potential listeners until 2029.

Our number one planet is so weird, it basically turns everything you know about physics upside down.

1. A Place Where Ice Burns

Ice. We’re doing our damn best to make it extinct on our own planet’s oceans, but still enjoy it in cool summer drinks. However, put some ice from Gliese 436b in your cup and you’ll instantly boil your drink anyway, pretty promptly following by your cup and hand. That’s right, on Gliese 436b, ice burns. Wait, what? Gliese 436b orbits its parent star in just over two days, which means it either violates all the laws of physics or is very, very close to its star. Given that planets are so far obedient to physics, the safe deduction is that Gliese 436b is as close to its sun as one-thirteenth the distance from Mercury to our sun.

This puts surface temperatures at an estimated 980 degrees (526 C), well above the boiling point of water. Despite this, Gliese 436b is believed to have an icy covering around its rocky core, with the ice so hot that it would incinerate any refrigerator you tried to put it in. If ice as hot as the devil’s balls is strange to you, it was strange to scientists too who theorized that the ice remained solid due to the incredible gravity of the planet compressing water vapor in its atmosphere into solid form.