Strange and Mysterious Planets Outside the Solar System

The universe is full of the strangest of things. There are hypervelocity stars – which aren’t shooting stars, by the way – and dust cloud that tastes like raspberry and smells like rum. There’s much more that sounds absolutely out of the world (pun intended). And then there are planets that are outside the solar system, which are mysterious. These strange and mysterious planets outside the solar system have been discovered in the past decade or so, after Dr. Alexander Wolszczan discovered the first three in 1994. Let us take a look at 10 Strange and Mysterious Planets outside the Solar System.

Here is the list of strange and mysterious planets outside the Solar System.

• The Planet of Burning Ice

Gliese 436 b is another murderous planet under the Gliese catalogue. It is about 20 times bigger than Earth, and is roughly the size of Neptune. The planet is 4.3 million miles away from its host star, in comparison to Earth which is 93 million miles from Sun. The temperature on the planet is 822°F, and its surface is covered with burning ice. The immense gravitational force of the planet keeps the water molecules too densely packed to evaporate, and thus, prevents them from escaping the planet. The burning ice is called ice-ten, with reference to ice-ten from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.

• The Diamond Planet

55 Cancri e, discovered in 2004, is known as "Super Earth" because it is twice the size of Earth and eight times its mass. Its main component, aside from graphite and other silicates, is diamond. It is made of crystallised diamond, with pure diamond accounting for one-third of its mass. Once a star in a binary system, its companion began to devour it, leaving only the gem core. It has a temperature of 3900°F. It is worth $26.9 nonillion, or 384 quintillion times the Earth's GDP of $74 trillion. Mining only 0.182% of it would pay off all of the world's governments' total debt of $50 trillion. They only need to travel 40 light-years.

• The Planet with Enormous Planetary Rings

J1407 b has been discovered in 2012, and its data have been compiled and submitted for publication only recently. It is located 400 light years away from Earth. What is astounding about this planet is that it has a system of planetary rings, just like Saturn, and these rings are 200 times larger than the ones around Saturn. The rings are so big that if they belonged to Saturn, it would almost dominate the Earth’s sky, appearing larger than the Moon, and scientists also observed a 56-day eclipse of its host star. The gaps between the rings are believed to represent exomoons orbiting this exoplanet.

• The Swelled Up Gas Planet

HAT-P-1 is a strange and mysterious planet located 450 light years away that was recently discovered by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Is a giant gas planet about half the size of Jupiter, but the amazing thing about it is that, despite its size, it weighs about the same as a cork ball. It is classified as a "hot Jupiter" planet, and it is nearly 25% larger than models predict, which perplexes astrophysicists who are trying to figure out why it has swelled up. Scientists believe it can float in water and are eager to see how well it does.

• The Loneliest Planet

HD 106906 b is the “forever-alone guy” of planets as it hangs out, all by itself, in the Cruz constellation, revolving around its host star at a distance of 60,000,000,000 miles, over 20 times the space between Neptune and the Sun. Located nearly 300 light years away from the Earth, the “Super-Jupiter” class planet which is above 11 times larger than the Jupiter, is thus too far away from the host to gather raw material needed for its formation. Astrophysicists hypothecate that it is a failed star, thus challenging the binary star theory, since it is too small for binary formations.

• The Black Hole Planet

TrES-2b is similar to Jupiter in that it is nearly the same size and orbits a star similar to the sun - except it is 750 light years away. This Jupiter-class gas giant reflects less than 1% of the light it encounters. In other words, it absorbs a massive amount of light, making it the darkest planet. It is significantly darker than black acrylic paint or even coal. It is thought that the planet's atmosphere contains chemicals or a mixture of compounds. Surprisingly, at 1800°F, it becomes hot enough to emit a dull, reddish glow, which is visible due to all of the absorbed light.

• The Planet from Hell

Gliese 581c is theoretically the most likely to support colonization, except it is one hell of a planet. It is tidally locked to always face the Red Dwarf star which it revolves around, on one side, and is at a distance such that standing on the star-side of the planet will melt you, while stepping on the dark-side will freeze you immediately. In the narrow habitable belt between the two extremes, there are other challenges. The sky is hellishly red since the planet is at the lower frequency end of our visual spectrum, while photosynthesizing plants are subjected to infrared radiation, thus blackening them.

• The Rock Showers of Planet

The CoRoT-7b planet is the first rocky planet discovered orbiting a star other than the Sun, and it is strange and mysterious. It is thought to have started out as a giant gas planet like Neptune or Saturn, but due to its close proximity to its host, it gradually lost its gas and atmosphere layers. Because it is tidally locked, it always faces its star on one side, where the temperature can reach 4000°F, while the temperature on the opposite side is around 350°F. Rock rain is caused by vaporised rocks that fall as liquid rock rain and solidify on the planet's surface.