An international group of astronomers discovered a hot rocky exoplanet, similar in composition to Mercury, it has a lot of iron. The planet is 20% larger than the Earth and 2.6 times more massive than our planet. Its density is 8.9 g / cm3. The planet is located in the constellation of the Virgin at a distance of 339 light years from us.
The object, called K2-229b, revolves around its orange dwarf star – at a very close distance (0.012 AU), so the temperature on the planet is several times higher than on Mercury. On the illuminated side, the temperature reaches about 2 thousand degrees Celsius. The orbital period of the exoplanet is only 14 hours.
In addition to K2-229b, two other planets were discovered in the system. But K2-229b was the nearest to the star. The other two are also close to it – closer than Mercury to the Sun. K2-229c and K2-229d in the mass of the Earth are 21.3 and 25.1 times, respectively, and their radius is 2.12 and 2.65 times greater than the Earth’s radius.
