New baby planet discovered by astronomers at University of Arizona

Astronomers at the University of Arizona discovered a growing planet outside of our solar system. The “baby” planet is embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas, a development that has never been seen before.

Led by astronomers Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, the planet’s discovery occurred using the university’s MagAO-X extreme adaptive optics system in Chile.

Astronomers have been observing dozens of planets similar to this, being formed in disks of dust and gas surrounding young stars; however, no developing plants have been seen in the conspicuous disk gaps, which appear as dark rings.

University of Arizona Astronomer Laird Close, joined “Arizona Horizon” to provide more details on the formation of the new planet.

According to Close, around 6,000 planets have been found outside our solar system, but what is interesting about the discovery of WISPIT 2b is that astronomers at the University have been able to discover the planet and watch it grow.

“We almost know nothing about how planets are formed,” Close said. “We know that there are baby planets out there, we know that there are planets that are growing, but we’ve never really seen that process.”

While this is a unique and novel discovery for astronomers everywhere, for Close this could also be a stepping stone to better understand how our own solar system was formed.

“We don’t know how our solar system formed,” Close said. “This solar system is 5,000 times younger than our solar system, but it might look a lot like what our solar system looked like when our solar system was just 5 million years old.”

The camera developed in Chile is the sharpest imaging camera the University has used, and they are hoping to discover more baby planets using the technology.

^{Image courtesy of University of Arizona.}