An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at the University of Galway, has discovered a new planet at an early stage of formation orbiting its host star.
The planet, which has been given the name WISPIT 2b, is thought to be a gas giant of similar size of Jupiter in the solar system.
It was discovered unexpectedly as part of a study led by Leiden University in the Netherlands, University of Galway and University of Arizona in the US. Details have been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The 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.
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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 to 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 the Sun. The first one was discovered in 2018 by a research team also involving Dr Ginski.
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 were more common around younger or older stars. This led to the unexpected discovery of the new planet.
The planet was captured in near-infrared light – the type of view that can be seen using night-vision goggles – as it was still glowing and hot after its initial formation phase.
The team at Leiden University and University of Galway captured a clear image of the young protoplanet embedded in a disk gap. They also confirmed that the planet is orbiting its host star.
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Dr Ginski said: “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 research findings were co-authored by Dr Ginski and three physics graduate students who are specialising in astrophysics at University of Galway – Chloe Lawlor, Jake Byrne and Dan McLachlan.
