Astronomers have found what appears to be a new planet forming around a young star, offering one of the clearest glimpses yet into the birth of a giant planet.
The discovery was made by an international team led by Dr. Christian Ginski from the University of Galway, using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
The stunning image of the planet-forming disk was chosen as ESO’s Picture of the Week.
The planet appears to be forming in a swirling disk of gas and dust around a star known as RIK 113.
This type of disk, called a protoplanetary disk, contains the raw materials that come together to form new planets.
In this case, the structure of the disk—featuring bright rings and spiral arms—strongly suggests that a planet, likely a gas giant several times the size of Jupiter, is already in the making.
The disk stretches out about 130 astronomical units from the star—that’s 130 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
For comparison, Neptune, the farthest planet in our solar system, orbits at just 30 astronomical units.
A wide gap in the disk, centered around 50 astronomical units, points to a planet carving its path through the material. Inside this gap, spiral arms swirl, similar to the outer edges of a hurricane, shaping the disk’s appearance.
Although the planet hasn’t been directly imaged yet, the disk’s shape matches predictions from computer models of how forming planets interact with their surroundings.
Some faint atmospheric emissions also hint at the presence of a planet, but more data is needed to confirm it.
Dr. Ginski and his team are now preparing for the next phase of their research. They’ve secured time on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to try and capture an image of the planet directly.
Thanks to JWST’s powerful sensitivity, they hope to learn more about how young planets grow and shape their environments.
What also makes this discovery special is the involvement of four graduate students from the University of Galway, who co-authored the study. The students described the project as an exciting introduction to scientific research, academic writing, and international collaboration.
This discovery not only brings us closer to understanding how gas giants form but also gives us a rare look at a system that may resemble what our own solar system looked like in its earliest days.
If JWST confirms the planet’s existence, this galaxy-sized nursery could become one of the best places in the universe to study how planets and stars grow up together.
