Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond Our Solar System

Our Exoplanets is a site about the exoplanets that we think are very interesting, such as Kelt-9B, or GJ 1214B. These planets are very different from Earth and are extremely strange. Now we are only doing some of the exoplanets because there is way too many to do all. We chose some that interested us and we hope they interest you too.

Kelt-9b is something known as a Hot Jupiter. Hot Jupiters are not known for their hospitality, since they're extremely hot, they have poisonous air, and the possibility of flesh-melting metal rain. But the hottest of all is Kelt-9B, which has almost three times Jupiter's weight and, KELT-9b orbits its star every 18 hours. Which means you could have a birthday every day and sometimes even have 2! But a planet this close to a star is probably tidally locked, keeping one hemisphere forever turned toward its star.

The barrage of ultraviolet energy from its star toasts KELT-9b like a marshmallow, bringing its daytime temperature to around 4600°K (7820.33°F/4326.85°C), which is hotter than the surface of many stars. Things such a carbon dioxide, water, and methane can't form at such hot temperatures on the dayside, though it's possible that they might be able to form on the night side of the planet. Additionally, the overheating of KELT-9b's dayside has puffed it up.

Even though KELT-9b is almost triple Jupiter's weight, it's only half as dense. KELT-9b is the hottest gas giant discovered, but it is not the hottest planet. Its full name being Gliese 1214B, this exoplanet is completely covered in water. GJ 1214B is located around 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus. This supposed "Super-Earth" is about 2.7 times Earth’s diameter and weighs nearly seven times as much as our Earth. It orbits a red-dwarf star at a distance of 1.2 million mi (2 million km), giving it an estimated surface temperature of 503.15°K (230°C/446°F).

GJ 1214b appears to have much more water than Earth does, and much less ground. The planet's interior structure is most likely different from the interior of Earth. The high temperatures and high pressures would form exotic materials like "superfluid water." Scientists guess that at the bottom of the ocean, the pressure will create ice 7, a type of ice that isn't cold.

Also known as Scorpion-1b, this exoplanet orbits HD 131399A, which is part of the triple star system HD 131399. It is 340 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. The planet is around 16 million years old. Its temperature is around 850°K (577°C/ 1,070°F). It is estimated to weigh 4 times the mass of Jupiter. The planet marks the first discovery of an exoplanet made with SPHERE, which stands for the Spectro-Polarimetric High-Contrast Exoplanet Research Instrument. It is installed on the Very Large Telescope. SPHERE is sensitive to infrared light, making it capable of detecting the heat signatures of young planets, along with features correcting for atmospheric disturbances and blocking out the otherwise blinding light of their host stars.