Astronomers spot baby planet shaping its cosmic neighborhood
Astronomers just caught a rare glimpse of a newborn planet, about twice the size of Jupiter, circling the young star HD 135344B—440 light-years from us.
What's cool? This planet is actually carving out spiral arms in its surrounding gas and dust, giving scientists real proof of how planets form.
How the researchers made the discovery
Using powerful tools at Chile's Very Large Telescope, researchers first snapped images of the disk's spiral arms.
Then they picked up light from the hidden planet itself, right where models predicted it would be.
This is some of the clearest evidence yet that planets can shape their own neighborhoods as they grow.
What does this discovery mean?
Even though we can't see this baby planet directly from Earth, its effects on the dust ring are crystal clear in high-res images.
These findings let astronomers watch planet birth in action—no guesswork needed—which helps us understand how worlds like ours might have started out.