WISPIT 2b is in an early stage of formation and is orbiting around a young star similar to Earth’s own sun.<\/p>\n
Astronomers have discovered a brand-new type of planet outside our solar system<\/a> that, even in its infancy, is already bigger than Jupiter.<\/p>\n The growing planet, named WISPIT 2b, is estimated to be about 5 million years old \u2013 relatively young in cosmic<\/a> terms \u2013 and five times bigger than the gas giant Jupiter<\/a>. The international team of researchers who made the discovery say the planet is in an early stage of formation and is orbiting around a young star similar to \u2013 but much, much younger than \u2013 Earth’s own sun.<\/p>\n What’s more, the find represents the first clear detection of a baby planet taking shape within a disc of dust and gas with multiple rings. This is also only the second time a planet has been observed at this early of a stage<\/a> in its evolution around a sun-like star, according to the researchers, adding that the find provides new insights into how young planets shape their surroundings<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did not expect to find such a spectacular system,” lead author Richelle van Capelleveen<\/a>, a doctoral student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in a statement<\/a>. “This system will likely be a benchmark for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n What is an exoplanet?<\/p>\n Exoplanets<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0planets<\/a>\u00a0outside Earth’s solar system. For that reason,\u00a0these celestial bodies<\/a>\u00a0are sometimes also referred to as extrasolar planets.<\/p>\n Some, called\u00a0rogue planets<\/a>, don’t even orbit a star, but rather are floating through the cosmos untethered.<\/p>\n An exoplanet known as K2-18b achieved a degree of fame in April<\/a>\u00a0when a team of astronomers claimed to have found in its atmosphere “the strongest evidence yet” that\u00a0life exists anywhere else besides Earth. Other scientists have since\u00a0cast doubt on the findings<\/a>.<\/p>\n Astronomers have confirmed the existence of\u00a0more than 5,800 exoplanets<\/a>, but billions are thought to exist, according to NASA.<\/p>\n How do protoplanetary disks play a role in planet formation?<\/p>\n Stars form when an accumulation of gas and dust<\/a>\u00a0collapses because of gravity.\u00a0Scientists think<\/a>\u00a0that generally what follows is the formation of planets, which emerge from the giant, doughnut-shaped disk of gas and dust that circles young stars, known as protoplanetary disks.<\/p>\n How? Eventually the star stops accreting matter, leaving the disk in orbit around it. The leftover gas and dust inside that protoplanetary disk become the ingredients for planet formation, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Astronomers have observed hundreds of planet-forming disks surrounding young stars for years, many of which display gaps in their rings. Such a characteristic suggests the possibility that planets in the disks are clearing a path by pulling in gas and dust under their own gravity \u2013 not unlike how a snowplow clears roadways.<\/p>\n But until now, only one other system, discovered in 2018<\/a>, had ever actually been observed with two planets inside a large inner gap.<\/p>\n WISPIT 2b is first planet of its kind discovered, researchers say<\/p>\n The new discovery, though, marks a major milestone: The growing planet is the first ever discovered outside our solar system that has carved a bright gap in the multi-ringed protoplanetary disc around its star.<\/p>\n WISPIT 2b was an unexpected discovery made during an unrelated five-year observational research project being carried out by an international team of astronomers at Leiden University, the University of Galway in Ireland and the University of Arizona.<\/p>\n The team at Leiden University and University of Galway captured a spectacular clear image of the young protoplanet embedded in a disk gap and confirmed that it is orbiting its host star, according to a press release<\/a> announcing the findings. The planet \u2013 orbiting at about 56 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun \u2013 was captured in near-infrared light, which is the type of view that someone would see when using night-vision goggles.<\/p>\n Researchers at the University of Arizona<\/a> then used a specially designed instrument to observe the young planet in visible light to determine that it is still actively accreting matter from its surroundings as it is forming its atmosphere.<\/p>\n The ground-breaking discovery<\/a> was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile.<\/p>\n ESO releases images of newly discovered young planet<\/p>\n The European Southern Observatory also released a stunning image of the discovery as the organization’s picture of the\u00a0week<\/a> to help promote the new findings.<\/p>\n Calling protoplanetary discs such as the one in the image “the birthplace of planets,” the ESO said the discovery is “an important step forward in our understanding of how planets form.”<\/p>\n Here’s a look at photos of the planet and surrounding system:<\/p>\n Discovery could help astronomers understand birth of Earth’s solar system<\/p>\n The planetary disk likely looks remarkably similar to how Earth’s own solar system began 4.5\u00a0billion years ago. Astronomers have long turned to studying other planetary systems in their infancy to glean more information about how exactly the process unfolded.<\/p>\n Researchers claim that further observations of the system might reveal new insights about how our own solar system may have looked in its early days.<\/p>\n “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,” study coauthor Christian Ginski<\/a>, an astronomer at Galway who was part of the previous 2018 discovery, said in a statement. “I think many of our colleagues who study planet formation will take a close look at this system in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Two<\/a> research papers related to the discovery have been published<\/a> in\u00a0Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WISPIT 2b is in an early stage of formation and is orbiting around a young star similar to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[8370,6626,13541,13715,13532,622,19471,13543,13545,13558,718,6779,14883,13547,3,13531,13549,13470,13560,6625,13544,79,13690,193,13554,9175,1695,13546,1608,76476,1596,826,13557,3795,13542,13556,404,3447],"class_list":["post-118377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-astronomers","tag-astronomy","tag-connect","tag-content","tag-exploration","tag-fl","tag-fl-content-sharing-space","tag-know","tag-modular","tag-modular-story","tag-nasa","tag-network","tag-network-trending","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-outer","tag-outer-space","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-planets","tag-point","tag-science","tag-sharing","tag-space","tag-space-connect","tag-space-exploration","tag-star","tag-story","tag-sun","tag-sun-star","tag-the","tag-to","tag-to-the-point","tag-trending","tag-ttp","tag-ttp-what-we-know","tag-we","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}