New Young Planet WISPIT Two C Discovered

0:00On March 24, a team led by a Ph.D. student from the University of Galway has discovered a new planet called Wispit-2c. This gas giant is just 5 million years old and weighs 10 times as much as Jupiter. It orbits a young star in the constellation of the Eagle, visible in the northern hemisphere from July through November. The planet sits in the same system where the team found Wispit-2b last year, researchers from Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands used the very large telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert to spot it. They combine data from multiple scopes to create a detailed spectrum of its atmosphere. The breakthrough came from detecting carbon monoxide gas, a clear sign of a young planet rather than just dust. Chloe Lawlor, the lead from Galway Center for Astronomy, noted how exciting that confirmation felt for the group. Wispit-2c is twice the size of its neighbor, and orbits 4 times closer to the star, making it tough to observe from the ground.

1:00This marks only the second-known young system with multiple planets, surrounded by a multi-ringed dust disk, much like our early solar system. These binds give scientists a frat row seat to watch massive planets form and grow, revealing clues about how worlds like Earth took shape. The full study heads to the astrophysical journal later soon.