Earth sized 'Pi planet' discovered by team of MIT Scientists, know more

A group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently made a startling discovery. These MIT scientists have found an earth-sized "Pi Planet". This newly discovered planet gets its bizarre name from the fact that it takes 3.14 days to revolve around its star. While the new Pi planet is almost the same size as Earth, scientists have argued that it might not be hospitable given its close proximity to its parent star. Read on to know more about this unique Pi planet.

Read | NASA Plans To Send First Woman And Next Man To Moon By 2024, To Cost $28 Billion

How did MIT scientists find Pi Earth?

Prajwal Niraula is a graduate student in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). He is also the lead author of a paper published in the Astronomical Journal, titled: "p Earth: a 3.14-day Earth-sized Planet from K2's Kitchen Served Warm by the SPECULOOS Team.” He wrote this paper along with co-author Julien de Wit. In the paper, the two researchers revealed that while Pi Earth has been introduced to us Earthlings very recently it was first spotted in 2017. 

Read | NASA Shares Image Of The Crab Supernova Observed In 1054 CE

They were able to do this with the help of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope's K2 mission which helped them to identify the signals coming from this planet. They used SPECULOOS, (The Search for habitable Planets Eclipsing ULTRA-COOl Stars) which is a network of ground-based telescopes, the team was able to pinpoint where exactly these signals were coming from and also spotted the star that Pi Earth was orbiting. In the research paper, Niraula revealed that this new planet moves like a clockwork.

Read | NASA Mulls Planetary Missions to Study Venus After 'phosphine' Discovery

What is the new planet’s name and what do we know about it?

Owing to the fact that this new planet was found with the help of the Kepler Space Telescope's K2 mission it has been labelled K2-315b. Also, this is the 315th planetary system discovered within the K2 range. The researchers have estimated that K2-315b has a radius of 0.95 that of Earth’s, this makes it just about the size of Earth. 

Read | NASA Failed Missions: Know Details Of Intriguing Failed Missions By NASA

It is orbiting a cool, low-mass star which is estimated to be about one-fifth the size of the sun. The Pi Earth circles its star every 3.14 days, at 81 kilometres per second, which is about 181,000 miles per hour. In spite of its similar size to earth, the researchers have calculated that the temperature of K2-315b is at least 450 Kelvins or around 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Promo Image Source: Unsplash