An international team of astronomers led by University of Galway, has discovered the likely site of a new planet in formation, most likely a gas giant planet up to a few times the mass of Jupiter.
An international team of astronomers led by University of Galway, has discovered the likely site of a new planet in formation, most likely a gas giant planet up to a few times the mass of Jupiter.
Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, the researchers captured spectacular images around a distant young star for the first time in the form of scattered near-infrared light that revealed an exceptionally structured disk.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO), the world’s foremost international astronomy organisation, has today (Monday June 9, 2025) published a stunning view of the new planet-forming disk as their picture of the week.
The disk extends out to 130 astronomical units from its parent star - the equivalent to 130 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. It shows a bright ring followed by a gap centered at roughly 50 astronomical units.
Read more at University of Galway
Image: Image of the young nearby 2MASS1612 system (also known as: RIK113) taken with the ESO Very Large Telescope in Chile. The image uses near infrared light that was scattered of the dust particles surrounding this young star. While the disk itself is enormous in size (larger than the solar system), it appears tiny on sky (roughly the size of a pinte glass in Galway as seen from Tuam) due to its huge distance of 430 light years from Earth. The structures in the disk indicate that a young gas giant planet is forming in the system. (Credit - ESO/C. Ginski et al)
