For several years, astronomers have been seeing the hallmark of planet formation around stellar protoplanetary disks. A baby star is surrounded by a disk of gas and dust, and to observatories like ALMA, grooves in the disk appear as dark rings. These grooves are believed to be formed by fledgling planets, but no planets have been seen in them. Until now. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.
Researchers report revolutionary observations of WISPIT 2, which show – both in infrared light and optical – a planet among the dark rings. WISPIT 2b, as it is called, is estimated to be very young, but a lot more massive than the planets in the Solar System – around five times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting 56 times further away from it