We visit a lot of planets here on WHAT IF,
but K2-141b
is the most extreme one yet.
Are you ready to jump on board
this one-way space shuttle?
If you’d rather stay safely Earthbound,
I want you to take a look
up at the night sky
and find the constellation of Aquarius.
Right there.
Now imagine traveling 202 light-years
in that direction,
and that’s where you’d find the hell planet.
Lava planets are exoplanets.
They're so close to their host stars
that parts of the planets' surfaces have melted,
and their atmospheres
are made of mineral vapor.
And K2-141b,
or the "hell planet" as we’re calling it,
is one of the most
extreme lava planets discovered.
But it’s not just immensely hot.
It’s also exceedingly cold?
There are two sides to the hell planet.
The dayside always faces
the orange dwarf star that the planet orbits.
Since it's so close to its star,
But the other side of the planet
couldn’t be more different.
Dwelling in constant darkness,
the nightside of K2-141b
Why?
The hell planet is gravitationally locked to its star because it's so close.
So the planet doesn’t
rotate on its axis as Earth does.
Now that you’re here,
you have two options.
You can either view the planet
from a safe distance
or get closer to the action.
You want to get closer, you say?
Well, alright, here goes.
Since your space shuttle would burn up in the intense temperature of the dayside,
you’d have to land on the nightside.
After putting on your high-tech spacesuit,
you take a step out onto the planet’s surface.
You are now the first person to ever set foot on -
wait a second, what’s that sound?
Oh, no.
I forgot to tell you.
That didn’t go well.
Let’s back up.
You'll need to keep your distance this time.
As I was saying,
I forgot to tell you that the hell planet
rains rocks.
The hot side of the planet is so extreme that
magma can evaporate.
That's why the atmosphere is toxic.
It's made of sodium,
silicon monoxide,
and silicon dioxide.
Not the nitrogen and oxygen we breathe on Earth.
Supersonic winds carry this mineral vapor
over to the planet's cold side,
where it rains down as quartz pebbles
and falls into a magma ocean.
This magma ocean is about 100 km (62 mi) deep,
and it eventually flows to the hot side,
where it evaporates back into the atmosphere.
It’s sort of like the water cycle on Earth,
but deadlier.
It’s also not as stable.
The magma ocean on the cold side of the planet is slower,
and scientists predict
that this will cause the mineral composition
to change over time.
So the surface and the atmosphere will also change.
All rocky planets,
including Earth,
began as molten planets
that rapidly cooled and solidified.
Studying the hell planet
could provide scientists with better insights
into how Earth formed.
So the hell planet
may not always be so hellish.
I hope you like it here,
So this would be a one-way trip.
You wouldn’t have enough resources to make it back to Earth.
Unless it wasn’t Earth that you traveled from.
Maybe you came from another exoplanet,
which humans settled on?
But that’s a story for another What If.