Space oddities: The strangest planets we've found so far

We've stumbled upon some strange things, amid our quest to know more and perhaps meet the neighbours.

- Team HT Wknd [e-mail]

There are planets that look a lot like Earth but are blue from silica, where whipping winds send a rain of glass flying sideways; others with a core of carbon compressed into diamond; still others with so little density, one planet has been nicknamed the cotton-candy orb.

Dark as coal: TrES-2b is an orb so dark, it is said to be less reflective than coal. The reason: at an estimated 1200 degrees Celsius, it is too hot to support clouds. In addition, its atmosphere is heavy with chemicals that absorb light, such as vapourised potassium and sodium. Where Earth reflects about 37% of the light it receives from the Sun, and Jupiter reflects about 52%, TrES-2b reflects less than 1%. Spotted in 2006, it has been nicknamed the planet of eternal night.

An orb of hot ice: Surface temperatures hover around 500 degrees Celsius on Gliese 436b, 32 light years away. Yet its surface is made up of a kind of ice, formed under atmospheric pressure levels so high, it cannot melt. Because it is pressure rather than temperature that keeps the ice solid, the material has been nicknamed Ice X. The planet was discovered in 2004.