Washington DC, Aug. 20 -- In a discovery that challenges current theories of planetary formation, astronomers have discovered an unusually dense, giant exoplanet that boasts 23 times the weight of Earth while remaining predominantly rocky. The 170-million-year-old planet is more than 2.5 times larger than Earth!

The celestial body, named GJ 523b, has been informally dubbed a "mega-Earth"- a rare category of exceptionally massive, dense, rocky worlds.

According to research led by Max Kroft at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the exoplanet is approximately 2.5 times wider than Earth (with a radius roughly 2.55 times larger), but packs an extraordinary amount of matter into its size, resulting in a staggering density of about 126.82 gr...