Astronomers have discovered a faint, elusive planet orbiting a young star after more than a decade of cosmic hide-and-seek. Two groups working independently detected the cold gas giant a few days apart late last year using different telescopes.
Discovery Details
The Scottish and German-led team spied the new planet around the star Beta Pictoris using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. The planet had remained hidden in the data all this time, overshadowed by its considerably brighter star and two companion planets.
The California-led team made the discovery with NASA’s Webb Space Telescope. Both teams reported their findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The new planet is slightly bigger than Jupiter and takes 91 years to orbit its star.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
