Newfound ‘Baby’ Planet Smashes Record for Youngest Known World

https://science.nasa.gov/universe/newfound-baby-planet-smashes-record-for-youngest-known-world/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nn202637 Astronomers have confirmed that a world less than a million years old is the youngest known planet, based on data from NASA-funded archives. Named Elias 2‑24 b, the newborn planet is still swirling within its natal disk of dust and gas. Researchers analyzed archival observations of seven stars captured with the coronagraph at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, a facility that partners with NASA under a cooperative agreement. Each star is surrounded by a debris disk filled with dust, gas, and chunks of ice and rock. The structures and gaps within these disks suggest that planets may be forming there. Elias 2‑24 b, roughly the mass of Jupiter, orbits a star about 450 light-years from Earth. Studying this young system gives scientists a rare glimpse into what our own planetary neighborhood may have looked like billions of years ago.