A mushy, romantic getaway: L98-59d

The next time people - including us - moan about a dry day, just tell them, 'L98-59d'. That's the planet, 1.6x Earth's size and 35 light yrs away that astronomers have identified to be in a 'molten, mushy state', with not a dry state in sight but overrun by red, hot lava. For centuries, astronomers have catalogued worlds of gas, rock and ice. Now, we have one made of cosmic porridge. Surface temperatures reaching a blazing 1,900° C, it's worse than what your summer's going to be this year.

Earth has oceans, Mars has dust, Jupiter has storms. What does L98-59d have? Texture. Imagine the interstellar tourism brochures: 'Come paddle in our planetary soup. Warning: Oars not provided.' Trump will soon enough want to own L98-59d for the US to grab mining rights to the known universe's first galactic risotto. Economists will speculate on the mush futures market. Diplomats will convene summits to decide whether mush counts as solid, liquid or simply embarrassing. And, yet, beneath it all - apart from a molten core, that is - lies a truth: science keeps reminding us that the universe is stranger than our categories. If planets can refuse to fit our definitions of solid, liquid or gas, maybe politics, economics and human life can, too. The universe could well be the creation of a cook in a messy kitchen, who's unpredictable, and prone to boiling over.