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Astronomers Confirm Youngest Exoplanet Yet
Confirmed
In Short: Astronomers have discovered the youngest-known exoplanet, Elias 2-24 b, which is estimated to be less than one million years old, making it the earliest stage of planetary formation ever observed.
Andrea Bernardi, a doctoral candidate at the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile, led the study that identified this new exoplanet.
The exoplanet orbits its star at around 54.9 AU, well beyond Pluto’s orbit in our solar system, and is precisely in the middle of a 30-AU-wide gap observed by ALMA.
Measuring its orbit will allow astronomers to directly weigh the planet and its companion star, adding crucial insight into the planetary formation process.
The faint glowing dot of Elias 2-24 b was identified after a decade of cosmic sleuthing across multiple observatories, confirming it as an actual planet moving in lockstep with the gap in the disk.
This discovery highlights the importance of direct imaging techniques in studying exoplanets, especially those that are heavily shrouded in cosmic dust.
The youngest exoplanet detected so far, Elias 2-24 b, offers scientists an unprecedented opportunity to observe the earliest stages of planet formation.
This discovery should encourage further direct imaging of planetary systems which may also harbor faint planets.
The new planet is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b, the famous planet in the same system, making it the faintest exoplanet ever imaged directly from Earth.
What this adds
The discovery of Elias 2-24 b confirms the youngest exoplanet yet, providing new insights into planet formation.
This exoplanet's confirmation challenges existing models and offers a rare opportunity to study the early stages of planetary formation.
What's confirmed
- Co-author Lucas Cieza at the Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos in Chile said : Our planet-formation models already struggled to explain the previous record holders for the youngest known planet — a four-way tie between two planets orbiting the star PDS 70 and two planets orbiting the star WISPIT 2 — which are all more than 5 million years old.
- It shows the exoplanet still growing within the disk of gas and dust surrounding its young host star.
What's still developing
- Astronomers have discovered exoplanets — worlds orbiting other stars — in a wide range of sizes, masses and ages.
- Now, researchers have found the youngest-known exoplanet so far.
- Last year, scientists said that another baby exoplanet, TOI 1227 b, is slowly losing its atmosphere.
- Bottom line: Astronomers have discovered the youngest-known exoplanet so far, Elias 2-24 b.
- Until now, four other planets have held the record for youngest-known planets.
- “Since Elias 2-24b is the youngest exoplanet discovered to date, its confirmation has important implications for planet formation timescales and the origin of the gaps observed in very young disks,” the astronomers concluded.
- Named Elias 2-24b, the newly confirmed exoplanet is estimated to be less than 1 million years old — so young it is likely still gaining mass from the protoplanetary disk surrounding its star.
- But a new paper available in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by a research team led by Andrea Bernardi of Diego Portales University in Chile describes a new paper that definitely takes the prize as the youngest exoplanet we’ve yet found.
- Animation of the formation model of the newly discovered exoplanet.
- Keck Observatory - Youngest Exoplanet Yet Discovered Found Hiding in Keck Observatory Data A.
- Most exoplanets we find have been around a long time.
- The best we’ve been able to do so far is to find a planet that had successfully carved out a space in a relatively mature disk, such as the 5.4 million year old exoplanet(s) PDS 70 b/c.