Astronomers snap the first baby pictures of a planet
Previously, scientists relied on swirling gas and dust to find hints of embryonic exoplanets
Behold, the sharpest view yet of a planet-in-progress.
New infrared telescope observations reveal an exoplanet that appears to be growing inside the disk of gas and dust around a star about 370 light-years away. Astronomers have indirectly identified other exoplanet embryos by observing the paths that these young worlds cleared through the dusty disks around their parent stars (SN Online: 11/6/14). But pictures released July 2 of the newly discovered exoplanet, dubbed PDS 70b, give the first clear visual of a still-forming exoplanet itself, seen as a bright splotch of light off to the side of its host star.