The planet’s atmosphere would feature something akin to Earth’s water cycle, but instead with sand cycling between solid and gaseous states. From the hotter, lower levels of the atmosphere, with temperatures close to 1,000C, silicate vapour would rise up, cool and form microscopic grains of sand, too small to see. Eventually, these clouds of sand dust would become dense enough that they begin to rain back down to the lower layers of the atmosphere. Below a certain level, the sand would sublime back into vapour, completing the cycle.

“The clouds would be like a hazy dust,” said Decin. “And these sand particles are streaming around at extremely high velocity. A few kilometres per second.”

Jesus. That sand is raining down on you at like 6800kph/11,000mph if it’s 5km/s. Those water cutting machines barely reach 1km/s and they’re used to cut steel and titanium.