Astronomers discover ‘newborn’ exoplanet – May be the youngest planet in our galaxy!

American and European astronomers have discovered for the first time a completely “newborn” exoplanet, 395 light-years from Earth, which may be the youngest planet ever found in our galaxy.

The researchers, led by assistant professor Jehan Bae of the University of Florida and the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), who made the relevant publication in the astrophysical journal “The Astrophysical Journal Letters”, made the discovery with the ALMA telescope (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) in Chile.

The very young exoplanet, still “under construction” as it lies within the disk of primordial matter (gases and dust) surrounding its star, appears to be the size of Jupiter. It orbits the also-young star AS 209 in the constellation Ophiuchus, which is only 1.6 million years old, so its planet would be even younger, perhaps 1.5 million years old (by comparison Earth is about 4.5 billions of years).

The exoplanet appears to be at an unexpectedly large distance from its star, about 200 times the Earth-Sun distance. Astronomers cannot explain how such a young star is able to support such a large planet at such a great distance. The planet will be a future target of the powerful new American space telescope James Webb Space Telescope, with the aim of calculating the mass and chemical composition of its atmosphere.

Over the past 30 years, astronomers have confirmed the existence of more than 5,000 exoplanets, with many more awaiting confirmation by new observations.

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