Hey space fans! 🚀 Did you hear about the baby planet that’s making astronomers super excited? 🌟 Scientists have just discovered a brand-new planet that formed in record time—only 3 million years! That might sound like a long time, but in space years, that’s like a blink of an eye! 😮
This young planet, which doesn’t have a cool name yet (they’re calling it IRAS 04125+2902 b and TIDYE-1b for now), is about 10 to 20 times the mass of Earth. That means it’s way bigger than our planet! 🌏 It’s one of the youngest planets ever found outside our solar system.
What’s even more amazing is that this planet is still hanging out with the leftover gas and dust from when it was formed. Imagine being born and still having all your baby blankets around! 🍼 That’s exactly what this planet is doing.
It orbits a young star that’s going to become an orange dwarf—kind of like a smaller, cooler version of our Sun. ☀️ The star is about 70% the mass of our Sun and only half as bright. It’s located about 520 light-years away from Earth. That’s super far—one light-year is about 9.5 trillion kilometers! 😲
Before this discovery, scientists weren’t sure how quickly planets could form. Earth took between 10 and 20 million years to form. But this new planet shows that sometimes, planets can form much faster! This has scientists rethinking how planets are made in the universe.
So how did they find this speedy planet? They used NASA’s TESS space telescope. TESS looks for tiny dips in a star’s brightness. When a planet passes in front of a star, it blocks a little bit of the star’s light. This is called the “transit” method. It’s like when someone walks in front of the TV while you’re watching your favorite show! 📺
One fun fact is that this planet orbits its star every 8.8 days. That means a year on this planet is just over a week! Imagine having a birthday every 9 days! 🎂
The planet is bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and it’s less dense than Earth. It’s about 11 times wider than our planet. Scientists aren’t sure what it’s made of yet, but they’re excited to find out! 🔭
They think the planet probably formed farther away from its star and then moved closer over time. Kind of like moving from the suburbs into the city! 🏠➡️🏙️
This discovery is super important because it helps us understand how planets form and grow. Who knows what other amazing things we’ll find out there in space? The universe is full of surprises! ✨
Keep looking up at the stars—you never know what you might find! 🌌
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
