Craziest Exoplanets Ever Discovered

From a planet that's on fire to one that has the longest known year, here are 15 Craziest Exoplanets Ever Discovered.

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7. One Long, Cold Orbit
Located in the constellation Lyra about one thousand light years from Earth this Uranus-sized exoplanet has the longest known year as it circles its star once every 704 days. Kepler-421b orbits an orange star that is cooler and dimmer than the Sun. Because it orbits its star at a distance of about 110 million miles the planet has a temperature of around negative 135 degrees Fahrenheit. As its name implies, this planet was discovered thanks to the NASA Kepler spacecraft.

6. Tau Bootis b
Discovered in 1996 this so-called hot Jupiter orbits closely around its star every three and three-quarters days. Lying around 51 light-years away in the constellation of Bootes Tau Bootis b has an incredible mass that is almost six times greater than that of Jupiter and is a planet the likes of which doesn’t exist in our solar system. In 2014 astronomers from California’s Institute of Technology in Pasadena detected water vapor in the atmosphere of the planet.

5. Kepler 440b
Along with Kepler 438 and 442 b, Kepler 440b was added to the Kepler Hall of Fame or a group of small planets located in their star's habitable zone in January 2015. Not a lot is known about Kepler 440b, which lies roughly 850 light years from earth. It was discovered using the transit method, a process in which the dimming effect that a planet causes by crossing in front of its star is calculated. Its radius is 1.86 times that of Earth, and it orbits its star every 101.1 days.

4. Of Fire and Ice
Its strange orbit means that life on the planet dubbed 16 Cygni Bb wouldn’t be very hospitable for much of anything, much less human beings. As it approaches its star, which lies around 69 light years from earth the planet heats up to temperatures exceeding 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. As its orbit takes the planet further away, however, it becomes incredibly cold, reaching temperatures below negative 430 degrees Fahrenheit for as long as seventeen months at a time. Lying in the constellation of Cygnus this planet may be fascinating, but it definitely won’t be our new home in the future.

3. Gliese 832c
Orbiting the dwarf star Gliese 832, which is located in the constellation Grus, around 16 light years from Earth Gliese 832 c is around half the mass and radius of the sun. Its existence was discovered in 2014 by a team of astronomers from the University of New South Wales and was the second planet found to orbit Gliese 832 after the discovery of Gliese 832b, a cold Jupiter-like planet in 2009. 832c has an orbital period of nearly 36 days and a mass that is over five times greater than that of Earth’s. Its star provides it with about the same amount of energy as the Sun does for our planet.

2. Small but Rocky
Kepler-10b represents the first rocky planet discovered by the Kepler space telescope. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it also represented the smallest planet ever found outside of our solar system. Its mass is over four and a half times greater than that of Earth and has an average density that resembles an iron dumbbell. Thanks to its proximity to its star Kepler 10-b orbits once every 0.84 days and is not in the coveted habitable zone. Half of the planet experiences extremely high temperatures that make its surface a huge ocean of lava with few solid surfaces. Regardless its discovery was a huge milestone in the search for planets similar to our own and solidified the importance of the Kepler Space Telescope.

1. SWEEPS-04
Lying an unfathomable 27,710 light-years away from our solar system SWEEPS-04 became the most distant extrasolar planet known to humankind when it was found in 2006. It's great distance from Earth means that not a whole lot is known about SWEEPS-04. Its mass is as much as four times the mass of Jupiter, and its radius is likely around 0.81 times that of Jupiter, though that value has an uncertainty range of around 12%.

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