Newly found ‘Hulk’ planet is 10 times the mass of Earth and has a hellish atmosphere

NASA has discovered a massive “Hulk” planet that is deadly in every sense of the word.

Named simply TOI-1075 b, the orb is 200 light-years away and fits into a category known as “super-Earth.”

“The discovery that TOI-1075 b is nearly 10 times more massive than Earth makes it a true Hulk,” NASA reported in a news release.

“Stand on its higher-gravity surface and you, too, would experience significant weight gain. You’d be about three times your weight on Earth.”

The planet is so massive, its version of a year is only 14.5 hours. That brief orbit also means the atmosphere is hellish, with temperatures of 1,922 degrees Fahrenheit, NASA says.

“Its surface, in fact, could be molten lava,” scientists say.

NASA hopes data collected from the bulky planet will give insights into how rocky planets like Earth are formed.

The super-Earth category applies to planets up to twice as large as Earth, NASA says, and such worlds are “shrouded in mystery, because we have nothing like them in our own solar system.”

“They are among the most common in the galaxy. They appear to be rocky planets, like Earth, and some lie within the habitable zones of their stars, a distance that could allow liquid water to form on the surface,” NASA says.

Scientists theorize most super-Earths have a thick atmosphere, consisting of hydrogen and helium.

However, that’s not the case with TOI-1075 b due to its “dense composition and scorchingly tight orbit,” NASA says.

“That makes TOI-1075 b a ‘keystone planet’ — among only a few others so far with precise enough measurements of size and mass to help scientists fine-tune their models of planet formation,” NASA says.

“That, in turn, will help them predict just what kinds of atmospheres super-Earths and other planet types possess, or whether they have atmospheres at all.”

The revelations about TOI-1075 b came after scientists studied data collected earlier this year from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), NASA said.

This story was originally published November 9, 2022 at 7:41 AM with the headline "Newly found ‘Hulk’ planet is 10 times the mass of Earth and has a hellish atmosphere."