Here’s hot and there’s really hot. Like for instance this exoplanet that was discovered by scientists at the University of Maryland to have a stratosphere with a temperature so high that it could actually boil iron.

For those of you interested the exoplanet is named WASP-121b  and is located about 900 light years from Earth. It tends to complete it’s orbit around the host star of it’s system in 1.3 earth days. It is as close to the star as possible without affecting the planet’s gravitational system.

The planet is a gas giant, akin to Jupiter in our own solar system. It was being studied through the NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, when scientists noticed glowing water molecules in it’s atmosphere. Spectroscopy was then employed as part of the science project to study the planet’s changing brightness at different wavelengths of light.

At lower temperatures water vapor blocks light from beneath it, but at higher temperatures, the water molecules glow. The water molecules give off radiation as they lose energy. This means that the atmosphere around the planet being observed is so hot that it can make regular water glow. Now that’s what hot is really like. Aren’t you glad that it’s not that hot out here?