A new extremely hot exoplanet, LTT 9779 b, the shiniest exoplanet ever discovered, is covered in metallic clouds.

The exoplanet, which was first noticed by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite from the European Southern Observatory in Chile in 2020 during a two-year mission to observe the brightness of stars using the transit method, is located about 262 light-years away.

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A study published Monday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics details that the planet's clouds are made of materials including titanium and silicates, which can produce a high albedo from cloud condensation, creating a “large eclipse depth in the optical.” A planet's albedo is the amount of light that a surface reflects.

While most planets and moons have a low albedo because they absorb light rather than reflect, researchers discovered planet LTT 9779 b reflects 80% of its light from its host star.

The planet orbits its host star every 19 hours and is approximately the size of Neptune and holds temperatures that are seemingly too hot for clouds. The side of the planet facing its host star is 2,000 degrees Celsius, once believed to be too blistering to have clouds. LTT 9779 b was the first planet to populate the so-called Neptunian desert, which is an orbital region extremely close to a star where no planets like Neptune can be found.

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However, researchers believe the clouds that reflect light could be preventing the planet from overheating and evaporating, and the highly metallic contents make the atmosphere heavier than most, allowing it to survive despite its unlikely conditions.

“If confirmed, the metal-rich atmosphere of this ultrahot planet can shed light on its evolution and current location in the middle of the so-called Neptunian desert,” the study reads.