Recently, we told you about an exoplanet that rains glass. Sideways.
Which got us thinking: 1.) we will never complain about the weather here on Earth again and 2.) surely that's got to be the worst place to live in the entire universe.
But no! With the help of NASA and Kepler astronomers and a couple physicists, we found nine additional wildly inhospitable planets.
Of course, you wouldn't survive too well anywhere in the universe that isn't Earth, but these places would be particularly awful--places with conditions "well-matched to Dante's visions of hell," as physicist Steve Tufte describes one of the planets. Check out the most miserable planets in the universe.
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Venus
Venus is very close to Earth in distance (between 24 and 162 million miles away) and in size (it's about 95% of Earth’s size), and prior to the 20th century, scientists thought it could be home to life. In reality, as physicist Steve Tufte puts it, Venus has conditions "well-matched to Dante's visions of hell."
The planet has more volcanoes than any other planet in our solar system and much of its surface is covered in lava. The surface pressure is equivalent to being more than half a mile underwater (which would about triple the deepest dive ever), and its temperature averages more than 730 K (hot enough to melt lead).
On top of all that, the planet is surrounded by a thick cloud of sulfuric acid, which would really, really suck, and its atmosphere is 96 percent carbon dioxide.
Conditions on Venus are hypothesized to be a direct result of a runaway greenhouse effect, in which the self-regulating carbon cycle spirals out of control. Billions of years ago, scientists believe, temperatures rose enough on Venus that water evaporated. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and so as more water evaporated, the planet only got hotter. Once a certain threshold was broken, it became a "runaway effect," where the self-regulating system fails. The result is the dreadful conditions for life we see on Venus today.
COROT-7b
When it rains on COROT-7b, it rains rocks. ‘Nuff said? Well, it gets worse: COROT-7b, which is 489 light-years from Earth and about 1.5 times our size, is estimated to be around 2,800 K (that’s 4,580 degrees F); the exoplanet is so close to its star that its year lasts only 20 hours on Earth; and its surface is probably a welcoming mixture of volcanoes, lava, and rocks. Okay, ‘nuff said.
TrES-2b
This planet is about 750 light-years away, and is basically a demon planet. Not much is known about it aside from the fact that it’s the darkest exoplanet discovered to date: blacker than coal, it reflects less than 1 percent of light.
Astronomers aren’t entirely sure what accounts for its darkness, but it could be that it lacks reflective clouds or has light-absorbing chemicals in its atmosphere. The fact that it’s so dark doesn’t mean it’s cold, though — in fact, what little light it does emit has a faint red glow like a hot electric stove, and its temperature is estimated to be around 1,255 K (1,800 degrees F).
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