The first planets identified beyond the solar system were shockingly unlike the nine worlds long-known within it. In sorting through the new exoplanets, scientists described them in terms that compared them to Earth's neighbors, dubbing them 'hot Jupiters' or 'super-Earths'. There are also 'hot Earths', terrestrial worlds orbiting their suns in periods less than two days.

Some planets stand stark naked. For the first time, we have observational evidence that some super-Earths orbit so close to their host stars that the puffy atmospheres that clothed them have been ripped away.

There are few things more frustrating when traveling by air than waiting patiently for your "zone" to be called at the gate, walking down the jetway like a boss, and then, inexplicably, being met by a sudden and immovable line in the plane's narrow aisle.