Astronomers have discovered an extreme Earth-like planet that likely hosts lava oceans as it roasts next to its sun-like star near the Big Dipper constellation.
It is the nearest, young Earth-sized planet ever discovered and – although life could not survive on its superheated surface – the young planet could teach us about the evolution of planets similar to our own.
Ben Capistrant, a doctoral student in astronomy at the University of Florida, was part of the team that discovered the hot Earth and co-first author of the paper along with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The lava planet whips around its young star every four days. In contrast, our solar system's closest planet, Mercury, takes a leisurely 88 days to orbit the sun.
