An illustration of the lave-riven super-Earth TOI-561 b (Image credit: Robert Lea)

Earth would be terrifying if we celebrated Halloween every 11 hours, a possibility on a super-Earth investigated by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). That is, if this extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, wasn't so hellishly hot that no life could survive on its surface.

The

exoplanet in question is the rocky lava planet TOI-561 b, located around 280 light-years away, which was discovered by NASA's exoplanet-hunting spacecraft

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) in 2020. The planet is located so close to its star, TOI-561, that not only does it complete an orbit every 11 hours, but its surface temperatures reach in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,800 degrees Celsius).

That is so hot that astronomers once believed that TOI-561 b couldn't possibly possess an atmosphere.…