What can young planets teach astronomers about the formation and evolution of planets throughout the cosmos? This is what two studies published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to address as an international team of scientists announced an incredible discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet only 5 million years old. This remarkable discovery holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of young planets and what this could mean for the formation and evolution of planets throughout the universe.
For the study, the researchers used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in the Chilean Atacama Desert to identify the very young planet, which has been named WISPIT 2b, orbiting in a dusty, multi-ringed disk around a young star. The researchers estimate this system is approximately 133 parsecs (433 light-years) from Earth and also found the disk that comprises the system extends as far out as 380 astronomical units (AU). For context, the distance from the Sun to Earth is 1 AU while dwarf planet Pluto has a semi-major axis (average) distance of 39.5 AU, and the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are approximately 168 and 140 AU, respectively.
Credit: C. Ginski/R. van Capelleveen et al.
Dr. Christian Ginkski, who is a lecturer at the University of Galway and a co-author on both studies said, “Capturing an image of these forming planets has proven extremely challenging and it gives us a real chance to understand why the many thousands of older exoplanet systems out there look so diverse and so different from our own solar system. I think many of our colleagues who study planet formation will take a close look at this system in the years to come.”
While the astronomers responsible for identifying WISPIT 2b hail from Leiden University and the University of Galway, astronomers at the University of Arizona—who also identified WISPIT 2b—found the young planet is still growing through the accretion (clumping) of gas and dust.
How many more young planets will researchers discover in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (1), EurekAlert!
