Regardless of how bad your living is on Earth, there are other planets out there that will surely make you feel lucky. Furthermore, the more you look at them, the less you should doubt the existence of Hell. The K2-141b exoplanet qualifies entirely, as it was recently analyzed by a team of scientists from York University, McGill University, and the Indian Institute of Science Education.
We know what characteristics ‘hellish’ planets have, in general: sky rocking temperatures that would make anybody to stop complaining about hot days on Earth, not a drop of water on their surfaces, and so on. But K2-141b is even weirder than that, as the scientists concluded by using computer simulations.
Supersonic winds that exceed 5000 km/h
The scientists involved in the study concluded that the atmosphere and weather cycle present on K2-141b are adding a lot to the hellish environment of the exoplanet. The space object features an ocean of lava located 100 km beneath the surface, supersonic winds that travel at speeds over 5000 km/hr, and more. Rocks from the exoplanet are even getting evaporated due to the extreme heat of about 3000 degrees Celsius, and they further fall back to the surface in the form of precipitation.
Giang Nguyen, who’s the lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student from the York University, declared:
“The study is the first to make predictions about weather conditions on K2-141b that can be detected from hundreds of light years away with next-generation telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope”
There’s still plenty to wait until we see the James Webb Space Telescope in action, as NASA will deploy it in October 2021 as a replacement for Hubble.
However, it’s not always so hot on the hellish exoplanet. There’s also a permanent night side just like our Moon has, where the host star never inflicts its light and energy. On the dark side of K2-141b, temperatures are close to the minimum allowed by the laws of physics, as they reach -200 degrees Celsius.
The new study was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
