It’s not every day that a new planet makes itself known in our solar system. Astronomers from the University of Central Florida stumbled upon one completely by accident while they were studying another planet, known as GJ 436b. They noticed that a large host star (a planet’s sun) kept dimming, which indicates that there’s a planet crossing in front of it. They named the new planet UCF-1.01. All these planet names sound like lottery numbers!
UCF-1.01 is tiny by planet standards. It’s a lot smaller than Earth and just a bit larger than Mars, making it the closest planet that’s smaller than ours. It’s roughly the size of a fourth of planet Earth. Thanks to its small size, it orbits very close to its host star and because of this, the planet is believed to be extremely hot. It’s so hot that there could even be oceans of molten lava because the heat would melt the rocks in a similar way that it would happen in a volcano.
The new planet is 33 light years away from us, so the chances of astronauts going to visit it are rather slim at this point. Regardless, it’s still exciting to know that scientists have found a new planet. If a whole new world can be discovered by chance, imagine what else could be in our universe just waiting to be discovered!