Overview

• An international collaboration co-led by University of Galway and led by Leiden PhD student Richelle van Capelleveen reports the discovery in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
• ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured WISPIT 2b in near-infrared within a gap of a striking multi-ring protoplanetary disk.
• A University of Arizona instrument detected the object in visible light, indicating active atmosphere formation through ongoing gas accretion.
• The planet is about five million years old, roughly Jupiter-sized, and located around 430 light years away in the direction of Aquila.
• Researchers confirmed the object orbits its host star, and the surrounding disk extends to roughly 380 astronomical units.