Astronomers discover nearly half water HD 176071 b 14-hour orbit
Astronomers just spotted a rare planet called HD 176071 b, sitting 335 light-years away.
It's about 2.5 times bigger than Earth and about eight and a half times the mass of Earth, but what really stands out is that it's nearly half water.
Even wilder, it whips around its star in just 14 hours because it orbits very close, at less than 1.5 million miles away.
Reflected light reveals Neptunian desert violation
HD 176071 b is rapidly being pulled into its star by intense tidal forces, so it's basically doomed to crash someday.
What's surprising scientists even more: this watery world shouldn't exist so close to its sun according to current theories (the "Neptunian Desert" idea), yet here it is with its atmosphere still intact.
The team used reflected starlight and brightness changes (not the usual transit method) to spot it, opening up new ways to find hidden planets like this one.