'Venus gone wild': New class of planets emerges from the shadows of cosmic dust
Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Not What It Seemed
Once labeled a mini-Neptune, Enaiposha flipped expectations when its atmosphere revealed more Venus-like traits, thick with gases and hidden beneath mysterious hazes.
Born of Fire
This superheated world orbits just 47 light-years away, shrouded in a dense cocktail of hydrogen, helium, methane, and carbon dioxide—like a Venus turned up to 11.
Venus on Steroids
Enaiposha is now considered a “super-Venus,” with an even thicker atmosphere than Earth’s sister planet—brimming with greenhouse gases and metallic elements.
Cosmic Smoke
The planet's hazy atmosphere is so thick it baffles even JWST’s instruments, with aerosols and clouds obscuring nearly every attempt at a clear reading.
Carbon Signal
A faint but real trace of CO2 was found in its air—a smoking gun pointing to intense greenhouse conditions similar to those that made Venus hellish.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Hard to Read
Studying Enaiposha’s atmosphere was a puzzle; its cloudy cover distorted the spectrum so much that astronomers had to tease out patterns from near-noise.
No Life, Big Lessons
While it’s far too hot to support life, Enaiposha is a goldmine for understanding how planets form, evolve, and maybe even become uninhabitable.
Alien Evolution
This planet might show how mini-Neptunes evolve into toxic, cloudy super-Venus types—an insight that could explain strange worlds across the galaxy.
New Planet Class
Enaiposha may represent an entirely new category of planets—neither Neptune nor Earth-like, but smoldering super-Venus worlds caught in chemical chaos.
Representative pic