An Exoplanet Too Far

Another day, another world. Since 1995, when astronomers discovered the first planet orbiting a star other than our sun, more than thirty-five hundred extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, have come to light. Gliese 1214b, which orbits the star Gliese 1214, forty-two light-years away, is thought to be a steamy ocean planet, with a thick atmosphere and seas hundreds of miles deep. The temperature on Smertrios, two hundred and fifty-seven light-years away, in the constellation Hercules, is so high—twenty-three hundred degrees Kelvin, far above the melting point of silicon or iron—that it can only mean the planet is perfectly black, absorbing all the energy that its star shines on it. Janssen, which orbits the star 55 Cancri A, forty light-years away, is so carbon-rich that researchers suspect that at least a third of it, a mass equivalent to about three Earths, is diamond. In 2012, Forbes estimated the planet’s value at 26.9 nonillion dollars—26.9 with thirty zeroes after it.

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Discovering Planet Nine