NASA Just Discovered the Youngest Planet Ever

Astronomers have confirmed the youngest known planet ever detected — a newborn world called Elias 2-24 b that is less than one million years old and is still actively forming inside the disk of gas and dust surrounding its star. Located about 450 light-years from Earth, this baby gas giant has a mass comparable to Jupiter and orbits roughly 55 astronomical units from its host star, farther than Neptune orbits our Sun. What makes Elias 2-24 b especially remarkable is that scientists are essentially catching a planet during its construction phase: it sits inside a narrow gap in the protoplanetary disk and is still pulling in surrounding material as it grows. Researchers confirmed the planet by combining observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory, ALMA, and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, including archival Keck observations from 2018 and 2020 that allowed them to track the object’s motion and show that it is bound to the star rather than being a distant background object. The discovery provides rare direct evidence that giant planets can form extremely quickly through core accretion and strengthens the idea that young planets are responsible for carving many of the mysterious gaps astronomers see in protoplanetary disks. In this video, we explore how scientists found Elias 2-24 b, why its record-breaking age is challenging planet-formation models, and how observing a planet being born could help us understand the earliest history of our own solar system. Sources: NASA — Newfound Baby Planet Smashes Record for Youngest Known World https://science.nasa.gov/universe/new... W. M. Keck Observatory — Youngest Exoplanet Yet Discovered https://keckobservatory.org/elias224b/ The Astrophysical Journal Letters — Elias 2-24 b Discovery Study https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae9bb6 Universidad Diego Portales — Elias 2-24 b Confirmed as Youngest Exoplanet https://astronomia.udp.cl/en/yems-phd... ALMA Study — Protoplanetary Disk and Gaps Around Elias 2-24 https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.06905