The Hubble Space Telescope, which brought to light many things we did not know about space until today, made a brand new discovery today while continuing to make observations in space. By examining the data of the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists observed a newly formed planet. The observed planet was even 9 times larger than Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, with 1,320 Earths in it. So on paper, this planet could fit 12 thousand Earths inside it.
On the other hand, the size of the planet wasn’t the only thing that made it special. The observed planet was experiencing one of the planet formation processes that are not very common in the universe. The planet was formed by a violent process called ‘disk instability’. This process was actually blamed for the formation of large planets like Jupiter.
The planet, which is 9 times larger than Jupiter
, does not consist of a small core that accumulates matter and gas like other planets in the violent process. Instead, a planet is formed when the ‘preplanetary’ disk around a star cools and its gravity splits into one or more planetary mass fractions.
The new planet, named AB Aurigae b, revolves around its star 13.8 billion kilometers away, more than twice as far from our system’s furthest planet from the Sun as Pluto. The star system in which the planet is located is thought to be about 2 million years old. The Solar System we live in is 4.6 billion years old…