A growing baby planet photographed for first time in a ring of darkness
For the first time, a growing planet outside our solar system has been discovered to inhabit a gap in a disk of dust and gas.
image:
The WISPIT 2 system as seen by the Magellan Telescope in Chile and the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona. The protoplanet WISPIT 2b appears as a purple dot in a dust-free gap between a bright, white dust ring around the star and a fainter, outer ring, orbiting at about 56 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun. The other potential planet, CC1, appears as the red object inside the dust free cavity and is estimated to be about 15 Earth-sun distances from its host star.
view moreCredit: Laird Close, University of Arizona
A team of astronomers has detected for the first time a growing planet outside our solar system, embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas.
The team, led by University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, an astronomy graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, discovered the unique exoplanet using the University of Arizona's MagAO-X extreme adaptive optics system at the Magellan Telescope in Chile, the U of A's Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona and the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Their results are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
For years, astronomers have observed several dozen planet-forming disks of gas and dust surrounding young stars. Many of these disks display gaps in their rings, hinting at the possibility that they are being "plowed" by nearby nascent planets, or protoplanets, like lanes being cleared by a snowplow. Yet, only about three actual young growing protoplanets have been discovered to date, all in the cavities between a host star and the inner edge of its adjacent protoplanetary disk. Until this discovery, no protoplanets had been seen in the conspicuous disk gaps – which appear as dark rings.
"Dozens of theory papers have been written about these observed disk gaps being caused by protoplanets, but no one's ever found a definitive one until today," said Close, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. He calls the discovery a "big deal," because the absence of planet discoveries in places where they should be has prompted many in the scientific community to invoke alternative explanations for the ring-and-gap pattern found in many protoplanetary disks.
"It's been a point of tension, actually, in the literature and in astronomy in general, that we have these really dark gaps, but we cannot detect the faint exoplanets in them," he said. "Many have doubted that protoplanets can make these gaps, but now we know that in fact, they can."
4.5 billion years ago, our solar system began as just such a disk. As dust coalesced into clumps, sucking up gas around them, the first protoplanets began to form. How exactly this process unfolded, however, is still largely a mystery. To find answers, astronomers have looked to other planetary systems that are still in their infancy, known as planet-forming disks, or protoplanetary disks.
Close's team took advantage of an adaptive optics system, one of the most formidable of its kind in the world, developed and built by Close, Jared Males and their students. Males is an associate astronomer at Steward Observatory and the principal investigator of MagAO-X. MagAO-X, which stands for "Magellan Adaptive Optics System eXtreme," dramatically improves the sharpness and resolution of telescope images by compensating for atmospheric turbulence, the phenomenon that causes stars to flicker and blur, and is dreaded by astronomers.
Suspecting there should be invisible planets hiding in the gaps of protoplanetary disks, Close's team surveyed all the disks with gaps and probed them for a specific emission of visible light known as hydrogen alpha or H-alpha.
"As planets form and grow, they suck in hydrogen gas from their surroundings, and as that gas crashes down on them like a giant waterfall coming from outer space and hits the surface, it creates extremely hot plasma, which in turn, emits this particular H-alpha light signature," Close explained. "MagAO-X is specially designed to look for hydrogen gas falling onto young protoplanets, and that's how we can detect them."
The team used the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescope and MagAO-X to probe WISPIT-2, a disk van Capelleveen recently discovered with the VLT. Viewed in H-alpha light, Close's group struck gold. A dot of light appeared inside the gap between two rings of the protoplanetary disk around the star. In addition, the team observed a second candidate planet inside the "cavity" between the star and the inner edge of the dust and gas disk.
"Once we turned on the adaptive optics system, the planet jumped right out at us," said Close, who called this one of the more important discoveries in his career. "After combining two hours' worth of images, it just popped out."
According to Close, the planet, designated WISPIT 2b, is a very rare example of a protoplanet in the process of accreting material onto itself. Its host star, WISPIT 2 is similar to the sun and about the same mass. The inner planet candidate, dubbed CC1, contains about nine Jupiter masses, whereas the outer planet, WISPIT 2b, weighs in at about five Jupiter masses. These masses were inferred, in part, from the thermal infrared light observed by the University of Arizona’s 8.4-meter Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in Southeastern Arizona with the help of U of A astronomy graduate student Gabriel Weible.
"It's a bit like what our own Jupiter and Saturn would have looked like when they were 5,000 times younger than they are now," Weible said. "The planets in the WISPIT-2 system appear to be about 10 times more massive than our own gas giants and more spread out. But the overall appearance is likely not so different from what a nearby 'alien astronomer' could have seen in a 'baby picture' of our solar system taken 4.5 billion years ago."
"Our MagAO-X adaptive optics system is optimized like no other to work well at the H-alpha wavelength, so you can separate the bright starlight from the faint protoplanet," Close said. "Around WISPIT 2 you likely have two planets and four rings and four gaps. It's an amazing system."
CC1 might orbit at about 14-15 astronomical units – with one AU equaling the average distance between the sun and Earth, which would place it halfway between Saturn and Uranus, if it was part of our solar system, according to Close. WISPIT-2b, the planet carving out the gap, is farther out at about 56 AU, which in our own solar system, would put it well past the orbit of Neptune, around the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt.
A second paper published in parallel and led by van Capelleveen and the University of Galway details the detection of the planet in the infrared light spectrum and the discovery of the multi-ringed system with the 8-meter VLT telescope’s SPHERE adaptive optics system.
"To see planets in the fleeting time of their youth, astronomers have to find young disk systems, which are rare," van Capelleveen said, "because that's the one time that they really are brighter and so detectable. If the WISPIT-2 system was the age of our solar system and we used the same technology to look at it, we'd see nothing. Everything would be too cold and too dark."
This research was supported in part by a grant from the NASA eXoplanet Research Program. MagAO-X was developed in part by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation and by the generous support of the Heising-Simons Foundation.
In this artist's illustration, infalling hydrogen gas causes the growing protoplanet WISPIT 2b to shine brightly in the hydrogen alpha spectrum, to which the MagAO-X instrument is particularly sensitive.
Credit
For years, astronomers have observed several dozen planet-forming disks of gas and dust surrounding young stars. Many of these disks display gaps in their rings, hinting at the possibility that they are being "plowed" by nearby nascent planets, or protoplanets, like lanes being cleared by a snowplow. Yet, only about three actual young growing protoplanets have been discovered to date, all in the cavities between a host star and the inner edge of its adjacent protoplanetary disk. Until this discovery, no protoplanets had been seen in the conspicuous disk gaps – which appear as dark rings.
The University of Arizona-built MagAO-X instrument in the clean room at the Magellan Telescope in Chile.
Credit
Jared Males, University of Arizona
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Wide Separation Planets in Time (WISPIT): Discovery of a Gap Hα Protoplanet WISPIT 2b with MagAO-X
Article Publication Date
26-Aug-2025
Planetary scientist decodes clues in Bennu’s surface composition to make sense of far-flung asteroids
image:
New results from OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, reveals why some gray asteroids reflect light at different wavelengths, like red or blue, more strongly. How these asteroids reflect light at red and blue wavelengths can give deeper insights into the evolution of rocky bodies in the solar system.
view moreCredit: Purdue University/Kelsey Lefever
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — New results from OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, reveals why some gray asteroids reflect light at different wavelengths, like red or blue, more strongly. How these asteroids reflect light at red and blue wavelengths can give deeper insights into the evolution of rocky bodies in the solar system.
It also enables future research. By having a better understanding and comparing what telemetry and telescope data say about an asteroid with what its actual surface particles say about it will enable future astronauts, scientists and explorers to navigate to and select asteroids for research or mining with greater certainty.
Michelle Thompson is an expert on asteroids and one of the international team of scientists studying the sample of the asteroid Bennu brought back by the OSIRIS-REx mission. OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s first mission to acquire a sample from an asteroid and deliver it to Earth, is the culmination of more than a decade of work by a team of hundreds. OSIRIS-REx’s name, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer, encapsulates the program’s goals.
Thompson, associate professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences in Purdue’s College of Science, studies space weathering — the interaction between the skin of rocky bodies and the environment of space. Her research has led her to ponder the moon, Mercury and asteroids, among other rocky bodies in the solar system. Her most recent magnus opus has been Bennu — the asteroid visited by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which brought home some of the oldest and most pristine asteroid samples ever studied.
“Sample return missions are a cornerstone of planetary science,” Thompson said. “They give us snapshots of the chemistry and the composition of the very early solar system. They let us look at the building blocks of the planets and inventory what was there. We can also compare Bennu’s samples to samples from Japan’s Hayabusa missions and get a better understanding of how these asteroids change and evolve and what we can tell about asteroids from the surface of the Earth compared to when we look at the samples themselves.”
This study is part of a trio of newly published papers based on analysis of Bennu samples by worldwide experts, including Thompson. Together, the research shows that Bennu is a mixture of materials from across and even beyond our solar system, whose unique and varied contents have been transformed by interactions with water and space weathering.
Then in a mirror dimly, now face-to-face
It’s not economically or physically feasible to visit every one of the 1.45 million known asteroids, or even a quorum of them, in the solar system. Being able to extrapolate and understand the nature of various asteroids by analyzing them from the safety of our home planet is key to understanding the myriad rubble pile asteroids.
OSIRIS-REx is humanity’s third asteroid sample return mission, after Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 visited asteroids Itokawa and Ryugu respectively. One of the things Thompson found fascinating is that since both asteroids Ryugu and Bennu are carbonaceous, rubble pile asteroids that date from the birth of the solar system; a natural assumption would be that they would reflect light the same way. But they don’t. In fact, Thompson says, when viewed through spacecraft telescopes, Ryugu looks faintly red — its spectrum slopes upward — and Bennu looks blue — its spectrum slopes downward.
“The question has been why,” Thompson said. “Why are their spectra different if they have the same kind of minerals? Going into the sample return, we thought maybe they might be experiencing these space weathering processes in different ways. Maybe we see different characteristics in one sample compared to the other because of this surface exposure, but what we’re actually seeing is that’s not the case. They are very, very similar in terms of the way that they experience space weathering.”
Rubble pile asteroids undergo cycles that periodically refresh the surface of the ancient asteroid, changing the way it looks to the eyes of a telescope or to human eyes looking through that telescope. Grains collected from the surface of Ryugu have been exposed to space for a few thousand years, but Thompson and colleagues found that surface grains from Bennu samples have been braving the void of space for tens of thousands of years.
“And so instead of looking at two different trajectories for how this process is operating on these bodies, instead we’re seeing two different points in one cycle,” Thompson said. “Their ‘colors’ are changing, meaning their spectral properties are changing relative to their surface exposure age.”
Being able to collect data visually, telescopically and remotely and correlate it to sample data — literally ground-truthing the data — enables scientists to extrapolate concrete knowledge to a much larger range of bodies in the solar system, perhaps expanding even to other bodies lacking an atmosphere including some moons and dwarf planets.
Salt and spice and everything nice
Earlier this year, a multinational team of scientists reported the discovery of salts in the Bennu samples. Among these salts were phosphates, which are important to life on Earth and critical to metabolism and DNA. The scientists found evidence of an ancient brine — an environment well suited to kick-start some of the precursor compounds for the chemistry of life.
Understanding these minerals and the organic molecules in the samples are critical for understanding what elements were present in the early solar system.
“Looking at the organic molecules from Bennu, we are getting an understanding of what kinds of molecules could have seeded life on early Earth,” Thompson said. “Information about what compounds, what elements are there and in what proportions. We won’t find life itself, but we’re looking at the building blocks that could have eventually evolved into life.”
The same ingredients are, of course, still part of the Earth today, but they have been mixed and melded and changed over the eons by forces both biological and geological. In contrast, the materials in the Bennu samples have been kept pristine. Their state allows scientists to look back in time to what the solar system was like before the planets as they exist today formed.
“Asteroids are relics of the early solar system,” Thompson said. “They’re like time capsules. We can use them to examine the origin of our solar system and to open a window to the origin of life on Earth.”
About Purdue University
Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 107,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 58,000 at our main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.
Paper
Sulfide Minerals Bear Witness to Impacts Across the Solar System
Nature Communications
doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61201-6
Media contact: Brittany Steff, bsteff@purdue.edu
Note to journalists:
High-resolution versions of the photo in this story showing Michelle Thompson, along with photos from OSIRIS-REx and of the asteroid Bennu, are available via Google Drive.
Journal
Nature Communications
Article Title
Sulfide minerals bear witness to impacts across the solar system.
Astronomers make unexpected discovery of planet in formation around a young star
image:
Image of a dusty disk around a young star. Among the multiple concentric rings we see a small dot of light (indicated by a white circle). This is an image of a new-born planet, likely a gas giant similar to Jupiter in our own solar system but about 5 times more massive. These observations were taken with the ESO Very Large Telescope in near-infrared light. Credit: C. Ginski/R. van Capelleveen et al.
view moreCredit: C. Ginski/R. van Capelleveen et al.
An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at University of Galway, has made the unexpected discovery of a new planet.
Detected at an early stage of formation around a young analog of our own Sun, the planet is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.
The study, which was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona, has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The ground-breaking discovery was made using one of the world’s most advanced observatories - the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
To coincide with the research being published, the European Southern Observatory - the world’s foremost international astronomy organisation - has released a stunning image of the discovery as their picture of the week. View images here.
The new planet has been named WISPIT 2b.
Dr Christian Ginski, lecturer at the School of Natural Sciences, University of Galway and second author of the study, said: “We used these really short snapshot observations of many young stars - only a few minutes per object - to determine if we could see a little dot of light next to them that is caused by a planet. However, in the case of this star, we instead detected a completely unexpected and exceptionally beautiful multi-ringed dust disk.
“When we saw this multi-ringed disk for the first time, we knew we had to try and see if we could detect a planet within it, so we quickly asked for follow-up observations.”
It is only the second time a confirmed planet has been detected at this early evolutionary stage around a young version of our Sun. The first one was discovered in 2018, by a research team also involving Dr Ginski.
WISPIT 2b is also the first unambiguous planet detection in a multi-ringed disk, making it the ideal laboratory to study planet-disk interaction and subsequent evolution.
The planet was captured in near infrared light – the type of view that someone would see when using night-vision goggles - as it is still glowing and hot after its initial formation phase.
The team at Leiden University and University of Galway captured a spectacular clear image of the young proto-planet embedded in a disk gap. They also confirmed that the planet is orbiting its host star.
The planet was also detected in visible light by a team from the University of Arizona using a specially designed instrument. This detection at a specific wavelength or colour of light indicates that the planet is still actively accreting gas as it is forming its atmosphere.
WISPIT 2b was detected as part of a five-year observational research project during which the international team sought to establish whether wide orbit gas giant planets are more common around younger or older stars. This led to the unexpected discovery of the new planet.
Dust and gas rich disks around young stars are the birth cradles of planets. They can look quite spectacular with many different structures such as rings and spiral arms, which researchers believe are related to planets forming within them. The disk around WISPIT 2b has a radius of 380 astronomical units - about 380 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
Dr Ginski added: “Capturing an image of these forming planets has proven extremely challenging and it gives us a real chance to understand why the many thousands of older exoplanet systems out there look so diverse and so different from our own solar system. I think many of our colleagues who study planet formation will take a close look at this system in the years to come.”
The study was led by an early career PhD student, Richelle van Capelleveen from Leiden University and co-led by a graduate student team at University of Galway.
The research findings were co-authored by Dr Ginski and three Physics graduates students who are specialising in Astrophysics at University of Galway.
A companion study by the University of Arizona was led by Professor Laird Close, where observations were triggered based on the information shared about the new disk by the University of Galway and Leiden University team.
Richelle van Capelleveen said: “Discovering this planet was an amazing experience - we were incredibly lucky. WISPIT 2, a young version of our Sun, is located in a little-studied group of young stars, and we did not expect to find such a spectacular system. This system will likely be a benchmark for years to come.”
Dr Ginski said: “We were so fortunate to have these incredible young researchers on the case. This is the next generation of astrophysicists who I am sure will make more breakthrough discoveries in the years to come.”
Chloe Lawlor, PhD student in Physics with a specialisation in Astrophysics at University of Galway, said: “I feel incredibly fortunate to be involved in such an exciting and potentially career defining discovery. WISPIT 2b, with its position within its birth disk, is a beautiful example of a planet that can be used to explore current planet formation models. I am certain this will become a landmark paper, owing particularly to the work of Richelle van Capelleveen and her exceptional team.”
Jake Byrne, MSc student in Physics with a specialisation in Astrophysics at University of Galway, said: “The planet is a remarkable discovery. I could hardly believe it was a real detection when Dr Ginski first showed me the image. It’s a big one - that’s sure to spark discussion within the research community and advance our understanding of planet formation. Contributing to something this impactful, and doing so alongside international collaborators, is exactly the kind of opportunity early-career researchers like Chloe, Dan and I dream of.”
Dan McLachlan, MSc student in Physics with a specialisation in Astrophysics at University of Galway, said: “In my experience so far working in astronomy, sometimes you can get so focused on a small task and you forget about the big picture, and when you zoom out and take in the magnitude of what you are working on it shocks you. This was one such project (an exoplanet direct detection!) and it was such a mind-blowing thing to be a part of. I feel so well treated by the University of Galway Physics department and especially my supervisor Dr Christian Ginski to have provided me with the opportunity to be part of such an exciting project.”
Two research papers have been published in Astrophysical Journal Letter in relation to the discovery:
- Discovery of planet WISPIT 2b in formation and captured in infrared light using ESO-VLT in research project led by Leiden University and University of Galway https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adf721
- Detection of WISPIT 2b in visible light led by University of Arizona https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adf7a5
Ends
Image of a dusty disk around a young star. Among the multiple concentric rings we see a small dot of light (indicated by a white circle). This is an image of a new-born planet, likely a gas giant similar to Jupiter in our own solar system (comparison image given in upper right corner) but about 5 times more massive. These observations were taken with the ESO Very Large Telescope in near-infrared light.
Credit
Ginski/R. van Capelleveen et al
A newborn planet eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits its host star. This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.
Credit
Credit: ESO/R. van Capelleveen et al.
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Publication Date
26-Aug-2025
‘Root beer FLOAT’ star burst’s is located with extraordinary precision
By Dr. Tim Sandle
EDITOR AT LARGE SCIENCE
August 25, 2025
An artist's illustration of two neutron stars merging, creating a gamma-ray burst - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Yuichi YAMAZAKI
An international team of scientists, including Northwestern University astrophysicists, has spotted one of the brightest fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever recorded — and pinpointed its location with unprecedented precision,
A newly detected FRB is one of the brightest ever observed. To discover this, astronomers used the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope array to triangulate the burst’s location.
CHIME is a novel radio telescope that has no moving parts. Originally conceived to map the most abundant element in the universe – hydrogen – over a good fraction of the observable universe, this unusual telescope is optimised to have a high “mapping speed”, which requires a large instantaneous field of view.
The millisecond-long blast — nicknamed by the researchers as ‘RBFLOAT’ (short for “radio-brightest flash of all time” and, yes, a nod to “root beer float”) — was discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) and its newly completed “Outrigger” array. By combining observations from sites in British Columbia, West Virginia and California, scientists traced the burst to a single spiral arm of a galaxy 130 million light-years away — accurate within just 42 light-years.
Since they occur so far away and vanish within the blink of an eye, FRBs are notoriously difficult to study. If scientists can pinpoint an FRB’s exact location, however, they can explore its environment, including characteristics of its home galaxy, distance from Earth and potentially even its cause. Eventually, this information could help shed light on the nature and origins of these mysterious, fleeting bursts.
“It is remarkable that only a couple of months after the full Outrigger array went online, we discovered an extremely bright FRB in a galaxy in our own cosmic neighborhood,” said Northwestern’s Wen-fai Fong, a senior author on the study in a research note.
Flaring up and disappearing within milliseconds, FRBs are brief, powerful radio blasts that generate more energy in one quick burst than our sun emits in an entire year. While most pass unnoticed, every once in a while, an FRB is bright enough to detect. FRB20250316A, or RBFLOAT, was one of these rare events. Detected in March 2025, RBFLOAT released as much energy in a few milliseconds as the sun produces in four days.
“This bodes very well for the future. An increase in event rates always provides the opportunity for discovering more rare events. The CHIME/FRB collaboration worked for many years toward this technical achievement, and the universe rewarded us with an absolute gift.”
“This result marks a turning point,” said corresponding author Amanda Cook, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University. “Instead of just detecting these mysterious flashes, we can now see exactly where they are coming from. It opens the door for discovering whether they are caused by dying stars, exotic magnetic objects or something we haven’t even thought of yet.”
To investigate RBFLOAT’s origin, the scientists relied on CHIME, a large radio telescope in British Columbia and the world’s most prolific FRB hunter. Smaller versions of CHIME, the Outriggers enable astronomers to triangulate signals to precisely confine the specific locations of FRBs on the sky.
With this array of vantage points, the team traced the burst to the Big Dipper constellation in the outskirts of a galaxy about 130 million light-years away from Earth. The team precisely pinpointed it to a region just 45 light-years across, which is smaller than an average star cluster.
Follow-up observations from the 6.5-meter MMT telescope in Arizona and the Keck Cosmic Web Imager on the 10-meter Keck II Telescope in Hawai‘i provided the most detailed view yet of a non-repeating FRB’s surroundings.
The investigations revealed the burst occurred along a spiral arm of the galaxy, which is dotted with many star-forming regions. The RBFLOAT occurred near, but not inside, one of these star-forming regions. Although astrophysicists still don’t know exactly what causes FRBs, this evidence bolsters one leading hypothesis. At least some appear to come from magnetars, ultra-magnetized neutron stars born from the deaths of massive stars. Star-forming regions often host young magnetars, which are energetic enough to produce quick, powerful bursts.
The research is set to be published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
No comments:
Post a Comment