This million-year-old 'baby planet' is the youngest world scientists have ever discovered
SMRTR summary
A baby planet is making its debut. Astronomers have spotted the youngest alien world ever discovered, a cosmic infant less than one million years old, still emerging from the swirling gas and dust that formed it.
Named Elias 2-24 b, this newborn giant orbits a star 450 light-years from Earth. It is two to four times the mass of Jupiter and sits nearly twice as far from its star as Neptune does from our sun.
What makes this discovery so compelling is the window it opens. Scientists rarely get to observe planets in their earliest stages of formation. Elias 2-24 b could offer a rare, real-time look at the processes that shaped our own solar system billions of years ago.
For researchers, it is like finding a snapshot of planetary childhood, a chance to watch a world being born.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Live Science.
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