Hot, Blue Planet Found

A blue planet has been found 63 light years away from Earth.

The mysterious world - catchily named HD 189733b - isn't a waterlogged home, but a hellish alien body with daytime temperatures of nearly 1,100 degrees Centigrade (2,000°F) and possibly glass rain that howls across the surface sideways in 7,000kmph (4,300mph) winds. The blue colour comes from a hazy atmosphere of high clouds laced with silicate particles, which condense in the heat to potentially form the drops of glass rain.[…]

Orbiting just 2.9 million miles from its sun, the planet, which was first spotted by scientists in 2005, is so close that it's "tidally locked" - one side always faces the star and the other is always dark.

In 2007, the Spitzer Space Telescope measured HD 189733b's infrared light, producing one of the first ever temperature maps of an exoplanet. It showed that the dayside and nightside temperatures differed by around 260°C (500°F), which would cause fierce winds to roar from day to night, driving the sideways glass rain.

Pretty, for sure, but definitely uninhabitable.