A bizarre exoplanet with metallic clouds that rain titanium onto its scalding-hot interior is the shiniest planet ever discovered, a new study shows. The Neptune-size world, which scientists say "shouldn't exist," acts like a giant mirror, reflecting light back toward its home star, which is positioned unusually close to the lustrous world.
The exoplanet, named LTT9779 b, was discovered in 2020 by researchers operating NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spacecraft. The gas giant, which is around 260 light-years from Earth, is around five times more massive than our planet and orbits its sun-like star every 19 hours. Only 1 in 200 sun-like star systems contains an exoplanet with an orbit that lasts less than one day on Earth; these worlds are known as ultrashort-period planets.
