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Newfound 'Baby' Planet Smashes Record for Youngest Known World
Developing
In Short: A newly discovered exoplanet, Elias 2-24 b, has shattered the record for the youngest known planet, at less than a million years old.
Scientists have confirmed the existence of a 'baby' planet, Elias 2-24 b, which has been found to be the youngest known exoplanet, at less than a million years old. This discovery, made using data from NASA-funded archives, challenges current planet-formation models.
According to Andrea Bernardi, a doctoral candidate at the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile, the planet was identified through archival observations of seven stars, each hosting a debris disk with structures and gaps suggesting the presence of forming planets. 'The galaxy churns out new stars and planets continuously, so there are many in every stage of evolution,' Cieza, a professor at the Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos in Chile, noted.
The planet, named Elias 2-24 b, is 55 times farther from its star than Earth is from the Sun. Its discovery is significant because it is 55 million years younger than the previous record holder, which is more than 5 million years old. 'Our planet-formation models already struggled to explain the previous record holders for the youngest known planet,' said Lucas Cieza, co-author of a paper detailing the results.
The team used the coronagraph at the W. to analyze the motion of the planet over time, confirming its behavior as a forming planet rather than an imaging defect or background star. 'The planets should be found within the gaps, since they are carving them,' Bernardi explained. 'The glowing dot they spotted was 55 times farther from its star than Earth is from the Sun and already behaving like a forming planet.
This discovery was made possible by the Roman space telescope, which was launched on August 30 and is equipped with an even more powerful coronagraph, capable of spotting planets that are much harder for other telescopes to see. 'Elias 2-24 b shows us that even our best planet-formation models are still missing some important processes,' Cieza concluded.
What's still developing
- Called Elias 2-24 b, the baby planet is still whirling in its natal disk of dust and gas.
- Planets found outside our own solar system are called exoplanets.
- Most of the exoplanets we’ve discovered so far have been found using transits, which happen when a planet passes in front of its star and temporarily dims the amount of light we receive.
- Current planet-formation models rely on a combination of complex theories and simulations, along with observations of young stars with disks where the presence of planets cannot yet be detected.
- Astronomers debated whether it could be a planet; according to planet formation theories, such gaps appear too early and too far from their stars for planets to have formed.
Sources
- Sciencelink