The youngest planet ever found was hiding in data nobody re-examined for 8 years
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The youngest planet ever found was hiding in data nobody re-examined for 8 years
Under a million years old. Earth is about 4.5 billion. Every other exoplanet we have found was already finished, and Elias 2-24 b is not, which makes it the youngest exoplanet ever discovered by a wide margin.
Key Takeaways
- Elias 2-24 b is under a million years old, against Earth's 4.5 billion, and is the only planet we have caught mid-formation.
- It sits about 450 light years away, between two and four Jupiter masses, and is still pulling material from its birth disk.
- Confirmation came from archival Keck coronagraph data first collected in 2017, eight years before anyone looked with the right question.
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