Detecting the planet is forming

The Rochester Institute of Technology announced the discovery of a young planet 10 times heavier than Jupiter, only 330 light-years from Earth.

Graphic simulating gas planet 2MASS 1155-7919 b.(Photo: CNN).

Most exoplanets discovered by astronomers have been fully formed after millions of years of surrounding matter accumulation by gravity. But the new discovery, 2MASS 1155-7919 b , is a very young planet, thought to be still in the middle of accretion.

2MASS 1155-7919 b, only 330 light-years from Earth, is in the group of Epsilon Chamaeleontis stars visible in the southern sky. It is 10 times heavier than Jupiter and orbits a star about 5 million years old, a thousand times younger than our Sun.

What is unusual is that the planet's orbit lies very far away from the host star, 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. This number is expected to change when the formation process is complete and only future observations will help scientists know how far the final distance between 2MASS 1155-7919 b and its star is. .

The discovery, made based on data from the European Space Agency's Gaia telescope, not only helps astronomers study the formation of giant gas planets, but also provides insights. more about their wide orbits. The findings have been published in the Research Profile of the American Astronomical Association.

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