Astronomers witness baby planet being born for first time

This ominous image shows the birth of a planet

This image shows the disc around the young AB Aurigae star, where ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has spotted signs of planet birth. (ESO/Boccaletti et al./)520 light-years away from Earth, a baby planet is born. While thousands of exoplanets have been identified so far, researchers at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, or VLT, in Chile, have captured the birth of a planet for the very first time. Nestled in a thick disc …

Astronomers Witness Ongoing Planet Formation in AB Aurigae System

Astronomers using the SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed a protoplanetary disk around AB Aurigae, a very young star 531 light-years away in the constellation of Auriga, and spotted a prominent spiral structure with a ‘twist’ that marks the site where a planet may be forming. “Thousands [...]

Super telescope image records unprecedented signs of planet birth

Scientists were watching a young star named AB Aurigae, which is 520 light years from Earth, when they noticed a dense disk of dust and gas swirling around it.

Scientists using Very Large Telescope for the first time observe a new planet being formed

Scientists believe that for the first time they have been able to observe — within a huge disk of dense gas and dust surrounding a newly formed star — a planet in the process of being born.

Baby exoplanet seen growing around star system in stunning photo

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope captured a stunning image of a planet being born around a young star located 520 light-years from Earth.

Stunning images of swirling gas and dust may show a planet forming

For the first time, astronomers may have seen direct evidence of a planet forming around a young star.A spiral disk of gas and dust surrounding the star AB Aurigae contains a small S-shaped twist near the spiral’s center, infrared telescope images show.That twist “is the precise spot where a new planet must be forming,” says astrophysicist Emmanuel Di Folco of the University of Bordeaux in France. Previously, astronomers have seen gaps (SN: 11/6…