Scientists have recently found a planet where the rain is rocks, the wind blows faster than the speed of light itself, and the planet is surrounded by magma amounting to over 60 miles deep. The researchers were said to have found extreme types of "lava planets" even before. They are described as worlds located really close to the host star that the planet's own surface actually becomes an ocean of molten lava.
The planet is known as K2-141b and is not the only extreme world that exists
The newly-analyzed planet is known as K2-141b and is said to be really unusual even amongst the other extreme worlds. The surface, oceans, as well as atmosphere is said to be made up of all rocks. These rocks then fall down just like rain and eventually melt into its vast seas.
It was calculated that about two-thirds of the said planet is actually stuck in perpetual, blazing daylight coming from the orange dwarf star that K2-141b orbits around. Because the planet is located really close to the sun, with a number of years that last only less than a third of Earth's days, it is locked into its place by gravity causing the same side of this planet to face the star at all times.
Different temperatures of the planet show how drastic the difference is
On the dark side of the planet, the temperature is estimated to be below -200 degrees Celsius while the other daylight side is about 3000 degrees Celsius. This temperature is hot enough to completely vaporize rocks into a really thin atmosphere.
According to the article by Independent UK, it is the planet's atmosphere that actually undergoes precipitation by working on a very similar principle as Earth's rainfall. Just like how water evaporates way into the atmosphere then proceeds to fall back down to Earth as rain, so does the silicon monoxide, sodium, and silicon dioxide found on the K2-141b, along with the rocky atmosphere that is being pulled way across the night side by strong supersonic winds allowing it to drop straight back down towards the surface.
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Planet is far away from Earth but is almost the very same size as our planet
Researchers apparently used computer simulations in order to thoroughly understand exactly what conditions does Earth have that are similar to the known K2-141b. Earth and the magma planet are about the same size but Earth, according to The Cut, is much farther than the sun. The planet is said to be about 200 lightyears away and was first discovered back in 2018.
Researchers were able to use the existing data about the known world and analyze it using different computer simulations that all let them understand exactly what the planet's atmosphere as well as weather cycle could actually be like. The findings could then be tested somewhere in the future by newer technology which will allow even more details to be observed regarding the atmosphere and the composition of the distant planets.
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo