Astronomers confirm youngest planet Elias 2-24 b
Astronomers used NASA-funded archival observations to confirm Elias 2-24 b, a planet under one million years old and the youngest known, orbiting the star Elias 2-24 about 450 light-years away. The planet, roughly Jupiter in mass, was detected in a gap within the star's dust-and-gas disk using the W M Keck Observatory coronagraph; gaps often signal forming planets. The finding, led by Andrea Bernardi and published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, highlights that current planet-formation models omit important processes and that more detections of such newborn planets could drive revisions to formation theories.
Elias 2-24 b is the youngest confirmed planet under one million years
Context
Scientists re-examined NASA-funded archives and Keck coronagraph images. They found a planet inside a disk gap around Elias 2-24. More similar detections could change planet-formation models.
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