Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that will delight math aficionados everywhere. The team found an Earth-sized planet orbiting its star in 3.14 days. The number is the approximation of π (pi), the ratio between the circumference and radius of a circle.

In The Astronomical Journal, the researchers nicknamed this distant world “π Earth” but its official label is K2-315b, the 315th (so close) exoplanet discovered in the K2 mission. The detection was confirmed using SPECULOOS, a network of ground-based telescopes.

Despite being Earth-sized, K2-315b is not a twin of our planet. Its likely temperature is about 180°C (356°F), which the researchers note is the perfect temperature to bake a pie! It's too hot for humans to stand on though.

“This would be too hot to be habitable in the common understanding of the phrase,” lead author Prajwal Niraula, a graduate student at MIT, said in a statement.

According to the astronomers, K2-315b has a radius of 0.95 that of Earth’s, making it a bit smaller than our planet. Its star is significantly different than our Sun at about one-fifth its size and much cooler. For this reason, K2-315b is not a molten world despite the exoplanet's close proximity to its sun. 

Located 186 light-years from Earth, the exoplanet orbits its star at 81 kilometers per second (about 181,000 miles per hour). Although astronomers don't expect to find life on this planet, it is still interesting to study. The planet may possess an atmosphere that could potentially be observed, helping researchers learn more about large rocky worlds around small stars.

“There will be more interesting planets in the future, just in time for JWST, a telescope designed to probe the atmosphere of these alien worlds,” says Niraula. “With better algorithms, hopefully one day, we can look for smaller planets, even as small as Mars.”