Two teams independently directly image faintest planet orbiting Beta Pictoris
Astronomers just found a super-dim gas giant orbiting Beta Pictoris, a young star about 63 light-years from Earth.
What's cool? Two different teams made the discovery separately in late 2025, and it is now, according to scientists, the faintest planet ever directly imaged from Earth.
VLT and Webb confirm Jupiter-size planet
One team used Chile's Very Large Telescope, digging through old data to confirm what they saw.
Meanwhile, another group caught the planet with NASA's Webb Space Telescope in just two tries: no data sharing, so no bias.
This chilly gas giant is a bit bigger than Jupiter and takes 91 years to circle its star.
Since Beta Pictoris is only about 20 million years old, finding this hidden planet gives scientists fresh clues about how planets form and evolve in young star systems.