Astronomers have discovered a faint new planet that has been hidden from view for more than ten years.<\/p>\n
The planet was seen orbiting a young star called Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years away from Earth.<\/p>\n
It is one of three cold gas planets to be found around the star. However, it was not previously spotted due to being 100 times fainter than the others.<\/p>\n
Unusually, two teams of scientists, one German and Scottish-led, and a California team, discovered the planet a few days apart, late last year.<\/p>\n
It was only while observing the brighter planets that they caught sight of it for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very much playing hide-and-seek for 11 years,\u201d said the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Markus Bonse, co-leader of the German and Scottish team who were first to discover the planet. <\/p>\n
A second sighting through NASA\u2019s Webb Space Telescope, which is the biggest and most powerful telescope to ever be launched into space, confirmed the planet’s existence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve now built a picture of this planet…and we are very excited to see what more can be learned about it,\u201d Ben Sutlieff, an astronomer at the University of Edinburgh, said.<\/p>\n