WASP-76b is hot enough to ionize your bones

One of the most amazing things we’ve learned by discovering exoplanets — alien worlds orbiting other stars — is just how humdrum our own solar system is.

The very first planets confirmed orbited a pulsar, the animated corpse of a massive star that had exploded long ago in a supernova. The first planets found orbiting “normal” stars like the Sun were hot Jupiters: massive gas giants like our own, but orbiting so close to their host stars they’re hotter than Mercury.

Among those, WASP-76b a scor...