Named K2-229b, the planet is almost 20% larger than Earth but has a mass which is over two-and-a-half times greater -and reaches a dayside temperature of over 2000°C (2330 Kelvin).
It finds itself very close to its host star (0.012 AU, around a hundredth of the distance between Earth and the Sun), which itself is a medium-sized active K dwarf in the Virgo Constellation. K2-229b orbits this star every fourteen hours.
Dr David Armstrong from the University of Warwick's Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, commented: "Mercury stands out from the other Solar System terrestrial planets, showing a very high fraction of iron and implying it formed in a different way. We were surprised to see an exoplanet with the same high density, showing that Mercury-like planets are perhaps not as rare as we thought.
Interestingly K2-229b is also the innermost planet in a system of at least 3 planets, though all three orbit much closer to their star than Mercury. More discoveries like this will help us shed light on the formation of these unusual planets, as well as Mercury itself.
Discovering details about far-flung planets across the universe gives us more clues as to how planets in our own solar system formed. As K2-229b is similar to Mercury, knowing more about the former can potentially reveal more about the latter.
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