Astronomers have detected young planets before, but rarely is a planet this young or so easily observed. As CBS News reports, a University of Hawaii-led team has discovered 2M0437b, one of the youngest planets to be ‘only’ a few million years old. This baby planet was found in the Taurus Cloud “nursery” and is still young enough from birth to emit lava-like heat.
More importantly, this discovery is one of our very rare chances to directly observe a baby planet. Researchers will still need to use special optics to compensate for Earth’s atmosphere, but they won’t have to use its star or other similar approaches to study the planet. We can say that 2M0437b’s distance from its star is about a hundred times greater than the Earth’s distance from the Sun, which also helps in this regard and reduces the possibility of interference.
Scientists first detected the planet in 2018 using the Subaru Telescope, but spent the next three years using the Keck Observatory and other Hawaiian telescopes to monitor the planet and confirm its attachment to its star.
Future observations may shed more light on planet formation. Gathering more details may not take too long, either. The team hopes that the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope can help detect atmospheric gases and nascent moons.
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