Overview

• WISPIT 2b was photographed inside a ring-shaped gap of its star’s protoplanetary disk, the first confirmed planet seen within such a gap.
• WISPIT 2b is a gas giant about five times Jupiter’s mass and roughly 5 million years old at an estimated distance of 437 light-years.
• The team detected faint Hydrogen-alpha emission from infalling gas onto the planet using the Magellan Clay Telescope’s MagAO-X instrument.
• Infrared observations with the Large Binocular Telescope’s LMIRcam corroborated the planet’s presence and position within the disk structure.
• Researchers also identified a second point source closer to the star as a candidate planet, with the discovery reported August 26 in Astrophysical Journal Letters by teams led by Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen.