Imagine a planet where the weather forecast includes: “partly cloudy with temperatures increasing by several hundred degrees, and a chance of atmospheric chaos.”
It sounds like science fiction, but it is real.
I study this strange world: a giant planet called HD 80606 b. Unlike the planets in our own Solar System, this planet travels around its star on an incredibly stretched orbit, basically flash-baking it in real time and causing temperature swings of over 1000 °C.
HD 80606 b is only one of thousands of planets discovered beyond our Solar System, and many of them sound completely ridiculous. There are planets where it rains glass sideways, planets darker than coal, and planets orbiting two stars like something out of Star Wars. The more we discover, the more it feels like the Universe has a much bigger imagination than we do.
Ever since I was little, I loved imagining strange worlds and faraway places. When I was 17, I came to Tasmania from Belgium on a high school exchange and later moved back here to study physics and mathematics. Between the mountains, wilderness, and incredible night skies, it felt like the perfect island for someone fascinated by space.
One of my favourite things is being outside at night and looking up at the stars, knowing many of them may have worlds orbiting around them. That sense of wonder is what I love most about astrophysics.
