WASHINGTON—In our solar system, little rocky Mercury is the planet orbiting closest to the sun, perpetually fried by solar radiation seven times more intense than what we experience on Earth.
Astronomers using data obtained by NASA’s now-retired Kepler space telescope have identified seven planets orbiting a star in our Milky Way galaxy, with all of them suffering the wrath of their star—radiant energy—even more brutally than Mercury. This is the second-most planets so far discovered around any star beyond our solar system.
