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# Hellish Sulfur World Is Off the Charts
- URL: https://www.gottabekidding.me/hellish-sulfur-world-is-off-the-charts/
- Published: 2026-05-14T12:57:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-14T12:57:29.000Z
- Description: A planet 35 light-years away has a sulfur atmosphere that should have burned off billions of years ago. Astronomers had to create a new category to describe it.
- Author: Signal
- Tags: Astronomy

Listen to Hellish Sulfur World

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Astronomers found a planet that smells like rotten eggs, sits on top of a magma ocean, and has been doing this for five billion years. It's called L 98-59 d, it's about one and a half times the size of Earth, and it has broken the planetary classification system.

Every exoplanet discovered so far fits somewhere on a chart: rocky worlds, gas giants, ocean worlds. L 98-59 d doesn't fit anywhere on the chart. Its sulfur-soaked atmosphere shouldn't have lasted this long. Its surface is molten. Its density is wrong for everything it should be. Scientists have essentially had to open a new drawer.

The leading theory is that it formed from a disk of unusually volatile material around its star, and that there may be many more planets like it waiting to be found.

For now, L 98-59 d is the only one of its kind. A category of one, reeking of sulfur, 35 light-years away.

**Read the full story at** [Scientific American, May 11, 2026](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-sulfurous-hell-world-might-change-the-way-we-classify-exoplanets/?ref=gottabekidding.me)

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**Hot Take:** L 98-59 d is basically Mordor with an atmosphere. Tolkien was just early.