Molten alien planet with sulfur-choked atmosphere displays unique hellscape

Astronomers have spotted a planet orbiting a star in our neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy that presents a unique hellscape – covered with a perpetual ocean of magma and ​enveloped by a noxious and fiercely hot sulfur-rich atmosphere.

The molten planet’s diameter is more than 60 per cent greater than Earth, though its density is only about ‌40 per cent that of our planet. It orbits a star smaller and dimmer than the sun located about 34 light-years from Earth in the constellation Volans.