“They found a new planet called ‘Pi’,” Felix excitedly announced.
Verum’s head popped up, “Did someone just say pie?”
“Our astronomers certainly have a sense of humor,” said Orak, amused.
“The exoplanet has been officially named K2-315b, but what’s the fun in that?”
An exoplanet is a planet that is outside of our solar system. It revolves around another star.
While studying data from NASA’s K2 Mission (a space mission to look for earth-sized exoplanets), a team of researchers had found a new object. Was it a new planet? The team wanted to know.
They looked through several telescopes and sky images to confirm its existence.
Orak continued, “K2-315b revolves around a red star 185 light-years away! The star is much cooler than our sun in temperature.”
But the astronomers noticed that the planet orbits the star every 3.14 days, which is the value of the irrational number (numbers which cannot be written in fractions) Pi (π is the symbol for Pi). So it has been nicknamed ‘Pi Earth’.
Another reason behind the name, Orak told the Mysticals, is that the planet is very hot. It has a temperature of about 187º Celsius (368º Fahrenheit) which is hot enough to cook an entire pie!
“So the name of the planet is a pun on its warm climate,” remarked Verum.
“How cool!” Scorch’s eyes twinkled, “Shall we go meet Pi?”