Astronomers Locate Surprisingly Young Planet

Astronomers Locate Surprisingly Young Planet

Most probably, planets are born every day across the Cosmos, but finding young ones is surely immense work. Finding a single exoplanet is hard enough, however. But such facts won’t stop astronomers from continuing their searches.

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa leads an international team of researchers responsible for discovering one of the youngest planets known, according to CBS News. The Keck Observatory from Maunakea also contributed to the discovery. At “only” a few million years old, the planet is practically an infant given the age of the Universe and even of our planet. Earth is about 5 billion years old, by comparison.

Thumbs up for 2M0437b!

The planet in question is dubbed 2M0437b, and we can only welcome it to the vastness of the Universe! The planet, along with its host star, are located in the Taurus Cloud, meaning a planet nursery. The temperature of the exoplanet is still pretty high due to the short time it went after the formation itself.

Mānoa Eric Gaidos, who is the head author and professor, declared as quoted by CBS News:

This serendipitous discovery adds to an elite list of planets that we can directly observe with our telescopes.

Located at 430 light-years away from Earth, the Taurus Molecular Cloud is also located in the constellations Auriga and Taurus. The stellar nursery hosted by the cloud is home to hundreds of young stars.

On the other hand, there are also some very old planets wandering through the Cosmos. PSR B1620−26 b is perhaps the oldest planet known – it’s almost as old as the Universe itself! PSR B1620-26 b is 12.7 billion years old, and it’s located over 12,000 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Scorpius.

Hopefully, many more planets that are younger than 2M0437b will be discovered in the near future!

 

 

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