The 18 strangest planets in the Universe

These planets are of great scientific interest due to their curious characteristics.

Space is a very strange place, huge, cold and very unknown. Although science has made significant progress in terms of methods for observing the vast firmament, we barely know, or think we know, 4% of the cosmos.

This means that the vast majority of all cosmic phenomena and objects are unknown to the human species. Will we ever know them all? It is doubtful, but certainly the little that has been discovered to date is something truly striking.

We will now take a look at the 18 strangest planets in the Universe.The phenomena that make them so peculiar and how far they are from our home planet.

The 18 Strangest Planets in the Universe, and their Characteristics

Earth is a strange planet if we think about it carefully. It is a cosmic body that is harboring life, something that to date has not been found on any other planet, although assumptions of life on other worlds have been made, and many.

However, apart from this, the rest of the terrestrial phenomena are not so striking if we compare them with those of other worlds..

There are planets with mineral storms, extreme temperatures and ridiculously small orbits. Here are the 18 strangest planets in the Universe.

1. Kepler-16b, twin of Tatooine

When George Lucas introduced Tatooine, a planet with two suns, in his Star Wars saga, he was a true visionary.

Although on Kepler-16b you could not live like on Tatooine, it does share the fact that it has two suns. On this planet there are two sunrises and two sunsets. and, if we can ever get there, we will certainly enjoy spectacular views.

2. Kepler-64b, the planet with four suns

But if the previous planet had two suns like Tatooine, the next one surpasses it, why settle for two if you can have four? Kepler-64b, also called PH1, is a planet where up to four stars can be observed in its firmament.

It orbits a binary system, which in turn has another system revolving around it. That is to say, Kepler-64b revolves around two stars that, in turn, have two other stars circling them.. This is called a circumbinary system, and it is really strange.

Life as we know it is a pipe dream on PH1. It is a giant planet, made up of gas with a radius more than 6 times that of the Earth, and with a mass 170 times that of our planet.

3. Kepler 36c and Kepler 36b, two very close planets

Kepler 36c and Kepler 36b are two planets with almost identical names, and this tells us how close they are.

Both orbit a star at very similar distances, almost in the same orbit. One is about 19 million kilometers away, while the second is about 17.5 million kilometers from its star.

Every 97 days Kepler 36c and Kepler 36b undergo a conjunction, i.e., the distance between the two is so close that the two are the distance between the two is so close that they practically touch (barely 2 million kilometers). (barely 2 million kilometers). If we could be on one of these planets we would see the other planet in its sky, although the view would not be the same.

If we were on Kepler 36b we would observe Kepler 36c as a giant celestial body, much larger than the Moon. On the other hand, if it were the other way around, we would see Kepler 36b as similar in size to our satellite.

4. Do you want to be rich? Go to HAT-P-7b

The universe is a magical, mysterious and immeasurable place. So vast that our wildest dreams and fantasies can be fulfilled. Who hasn't wished for precious stones to fall from the sky? This is a reality on HAT-P-7b.

This planet is one of the most distant elements discovered to date, located more than 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of the Swan. On its dark side it rains corundum, which is a mineral formed by aluminum oxide from which rubies and sapphires are formed.

Although for the moment we cannot travel to that wonderful world where we would be made of gold, well, rather corundum, we can be satisfied with knowing that it exists. By the way, this was the one millionth cosmic object discovered by the Hubble telescope.

5. PSR System B1620-26: planets orbiting a pulsar

Until a few years ago, astronomy took for granted that neutron stars or pulsars, originated by supernovae, destroyed everything around them, including their planets.

However, the discovery of PSR B1620-26 proved otherwise. This is a binary system located in the constellation Scorpius, and consists of a pulsar, a white dwarf star and a planet whose mass is greater than that of Jupiter.

There shouldn't be any planets here, but there are.It is a strange and, at the same time, beautiful phenomenon.

6. J1407b, the planet with the rings

J1407b is a planet 434 light years from Earth and the striking thing about its appearance is that it has incredible rings. In total it has about 37 rings and, if this planet were in our Solar System, we could see them in the sky, and it is even possible that they would look better than the full Moon.

These rings occupy 120 million kilometers and are between 200 and 640 times larger than those of Saturn. In fact, they are so large they are so large that they contain a satellite, larger than Mars, inside them..

7. Little, little Kepler 37b

Kepler 37b is an exoplanet located 215 light-years from Earth. It is asmall, tiny planet with a diameter of 3,865 kilometers, slightly larger than the Moon.. Its orbit around its star is about 13 days long and is composed of rocky materials. It is considered to have no atmosphere.

8. Osiris and its long tail

HD 209458 b, informally called Osiris, is a truly peculiar planet. Its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon and evaporation has been detected in it.

This is why astronomers believe that this planet loses mass from the radiation of its star. loses mass to radiation from its star, producing a gigantic tail of 200,000 kilometers (124,000 miles). which is believed to be responsible for losing up to 7% of its mass.

9. Kepler 7b and its unexplained density

Kepler 7b is a very large planet, twice the size of Jupiter. Despite this, this exoplanet stands out for having half the density of Jupiter, in fact, is one of the elements with the lowest density discovered to date..

It has one-tenth the density (0.166 g/cm³) of water (1g/cm³), which is quite remarkable. It turns out that, to date, there is no scientific law that makes sense of this fact, so Kepler 7b has an unexplained density, for the time being.

10. Winter has not arrived on HD 106906 b

HD 106906 b is a very strange planet located 300 light-years from Earth. Although it is 97 billion kilometers away from its star (very, very far away), science still has the question of how it can be that it is not frozen..

In fact, on this planet it is quite warm, at a pleasant temperature of 1,500 ºC. According to its distance this could not be possible, but it has been hypothesized that since it is a recently formed exoplanet it would still be hot and, therefore, it would not yet have reached that permanent winter as is the case of Pluto.

11. 55 Cancri e and its very valuable heart

Located about 40 light-years from Earth and twice the size of our planet, 55 Cancri e is a truly valuable planet.

Its orbit is a mere 18 hours, which in itself is quite astonishing. Its temperature is infernal, 2,000 degrees, which is certainly a fact that leaves no one indifferent. But what is most striking is its core, a Heart made of diamond..

This mineral represents one third of the total mass of the planet, while the rest, especially its surface, is composed of graphite. Thus, we can say that this planet, mostly composed of carbon-based elements, is a world with a very valuable heart.

12. Ogle-2005-Blg-390lb, an icy paradise

Ogle-2005-Blg-390lb attracts attention, not only for its convoluted name that seems more typical of a programming error. Located 20,000 light-years away, in the constellation Sagittarius, this planet has nothing to envy to Winterfell or the frozen kingdom of Frozen.

It is very far from its sun, a red dwarf, from which it receives hardly any heat. This is why it rarely rarely has temperatures above -220 ºC, being a frozen desert in which life is something very where life is very unlikely, or at least on its surface.

It has been hypothesized that, although it would be difficult on its surface, there could be enough heat in its core to melt the internal ices and form a huge subway ocean. It is believed that the heat would be generated by the gravitational pull of its moons, which give it a certain temperature.

13. Gliese 436b, an icy inferno

Gliese 436b is a paradoxically hellish planet. It is relatively close to our planet, only about 30 light-years away, and it was the first exoplanet that was determined to contain water.

The curiosity of this is that it would be difficult to find non-evaporated water on this planet, given that its average temperature is 439 ºC. its average temperature is 439 ºC. It is very close to its star, about 15 times closer than Mercury is to the Sun.

But not only does it have water, but this water is frozen! There is ice at its poles. Incredible as it may seem, there is a physical explanation: this planet has such a strong gravity that it compresses water vapor and transforms it into ice.

14. HD 189773b, in beauty you will find violence.

HD 189773b is 62 light-years away from our planet. It is only slightly larger than Jupiter and has a deep blue hue, very beautiful, product of its strange atmosphere composed of silicate molecules.

But beyond its beautiful surface hides a violent, hostile and ugly world. With winds reaching 8,600 km/h and temperatures of 900°C, it is not a very pleasant planet to live on. And as if that were not enough, the rainy days are truly aggressive, for because of the atmospheric silicate particles in HD 189773b rains glass hurtful.

15. The old Psr B1620-26 B

Although Psr B1620-26 B is not as old as the Universe, it is almost as old as the Universe. This planet is approximately 13 billion years old, three times the age of Earth and just a billion years younger than the Big Bang.

It formed around a young star, similar to our Sun, and orbits two now-dead stars in a cluster where more than 100 orbits two dead stars in a cluster where more than 100,000 stars can be found..

16. WASP-12b: the egg-shaped planet

WASP-12b is an exoplanet very close to its star, so close that it takes only one day to complete its orbit around it.

But it's not just the fact that in that one year it goes by as fast as a day, literally. Because of its gravitational pull, this planet has a shape similar to that of an egg..

17. TrES 2b and its darkness

TrES 2B is one of the most mysterious planets ever found. It is located about 450 light-years from our planet and, to date, is the darkest known planet, is the darkest known planet.

It does not reflect even 1% of the light that reaches its surface. This planet is a gas giant, which contains a high presence of sodium and potassium in its visible spectrum.

18. GJ 504 b is pink.

As if it were a planet from the Ratchet & Clank universe, where brightly colored worlds predominate, GJ 504 b is a planet with a striking pink color. This planet, relatively young, glows as a result of the heat of its recent formation..

Apart from being Paris Hilton's paradise, the striking thing about this planet is that it has four times the mass of Jupiter, being the exoplanet with the lowest mass detected directly through telescopes.

Final reflection

The Universe is such a vast place that it is doubtful that the human species will be able to understand it in its entirety before we become extinct. In how many of these worlds will there be life? What is life like there? What seemingly impossible things happen in such distant worlds? Si existe un planeta rosa, otro en el que llueven rubíes y zafiros y otro con cuatro soles, desde luego, todo lo que nos podamos imaginar es posible ahí arriba.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Wolszczan, A.; D. A. Frail (1992). A planetary system around the millisecond pulsar PSR1257+12. Nature 355: 145-147.
• Brown, A. G. A.; et al. ( 2018). Gaia Data Release 2: Summary of the contents and survey properties. Astronomy & Astrophysics. 616.
• Carter, J. A.; et al. (2012). Kepler-36: A Pair of Planets with Neighboring Orbits and Dissimilar Densities. Science. 337 (6094): 556–559.
• Bodenheimer, P.; Stevenson, D.; Lissauer, J.; D'Angelo, G. (2018). New Formation Models for the Kepler-36 System. The Astrophysical Journal. 868 (2): id. 138 (17 pp.)