"We were extremely lucky," a new planet is discovered: A fairly young version of our Sun

2025-08-30 10:52:16Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Wispit 2b

Astronomers have discovered a new planet. It is only 5 million years old and is located inside a forming planetary system, still shrouded in cosmic dust and gas.

It is named Wispit 2b, is approximately the size of Jupiter and has an orbit with a radius about 380 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

This is the second planet to be discovered at such an early stage of its creation and the initial evolution of the system, its star, a fairly young version of our Sun, is surrounded by bright, quite beautiful rings.

“Discovering this planet was an amazing experience – we were incredibly lucky,” team leader and Leiden University researcher Richelle van Capelleveen said in a statement. “WISPIT 2, a new version of our sun, is located in a young, little-studied cluster of stars, and we did not expect to find such a spectacular system. This system is likely to be a landmark for years to come.”

"We were extremely lucky," a new planet is discovered: A fairly young

The discovery was made with the European Observatory's Very Large Telescope located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, as part of the project to observe and study young stars in space, and was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.


Video