Introducing the Youngest Baby Planets Ever!
“If planet formation in the disc of IRS 63 has already begun, then it is probable that planets and protostars grow and evolve together from early times,” wrote researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany in their study.
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00:00When it comes to how planets form, there's a lot we don't know, but now scientists have
00:08discovered the youngest baby planets yet, meaning the process begins much earlier than
00:14previously thought.
00:16Traces of planet formation have been detected around protostar IRS-63 in a stellar nursery
00:22470 light years away.
00:25In the grand scheme of things, IRS-63 is like a newborn itself.
00:29At less than half a million years old, it hasn't fully formed yet from the cloud of
00:34surrounding dust.
00:36Using Chile's Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array, astronomers noticed the tell-tale signs
00:42of planets forming around the baby star.
00:45This would be the earliest detection of proto-planets yet, meaning planets and stars might grow
00:51and evolve together on a much earlier timeline.
00:54Based on the size of the gaps around IRS-63, the astronomers estimate the proto-planets
01:00to be substantially large, at least one-third the mass of Jupiter.
01:05The research was published in Nature.