News Astronomy

Record Breaker: A planet from the early universe

By Ron Cowen

- More than 2 years ago

Astronomers have found the oldest and most distant planet known in the universe.

OLD ORB. Artist’s view of the planet (top) orbiting a pulsar and its white dwarf companion (two brightest dots at lower left) in the globular cluster M4. NASA and G. Bacon/STScI

Residing 7,200 light-years away, the planet weighs 2.5 times as much as Jupiter and formed when the universe was an infant, Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State University in State College and his colleagues report in the July 11 Science.