Imagine peeking back in time to watch a planet being born. That’s essentially what an international team of astronomers has achieved. They’ve spotted a brand new exoplanet, a baby in cosmic terms, forming around a star much like our own Sun. Scientists figure this giant planet is only about five million years old.
This fresh discovery, detailed recently in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, shows us a gas giant similar in size to Jupiter. For context, Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system, stretching about 69,000 kilometers across. Our Earth, a much smaller world, measures around 6,371 kilometers in diameter. Researchers from the universities of Leiden in the Netherlands, Galway in Ireland, and Arizona in the United States worked together to make this exciting find.
The powerful VLT (Very Large Telescope) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), known as one of the world’s most advanced telescopes, made this observation possible. Christian Ginski, a researcher at the University of Galway and the study’s second author, shared his amazement. He explained that while watching this young star, they saw "a completely unexpected and exceptionally beautiful multi-ring dust disk." This sight sparked an idea. "When we first saw it, we knew we had to try to see if we could detect a planet inside it," Ginski said. They quickly asked for more observations to confirm their hunch.
This is only the second time anyone has caught a planet forming at such an early stage around a young star similar to our Sun. The first such observation happened back in 2018. The team used infrared light to spot the exoplanet. It’s still glowing brightly and staying hot from its initial formation. They managed to capture a clear image, confirming the planet truly orbits its host star. What’s more, they found the planet is still actively collecting gas, building up its atmosphere even now. This offers a rare, direct look at how planets come to be.