Astronomers have confirmed the discovery of Elias 2-24 b, the youngest exoplanet ever found at less than a million years old. Identified by Andrea Bernardi and his research team using archival data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Jupiter-mass world orbits a star located 450 light-years from Earth. The findings offer a rare glimpse into the earliest moments of planet formation.
Unlocking the Secrets of Elias 2-24 b
Elias 2-24 b sits inside a prominent gap within the dust and gas disk surrounding its host star. According to Bernardi, a doctoral candidate at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile whose team published the findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, forming planets carve out these paths as they orbit.
The planet is roughly as massive as Jupiter and rests about 55 times farther from its star than Earth is from the Sun. Its host star is an infant by cosmic standards, estimated to be between 200,000 and 400,000 years old.
Lucas Cieza, a professor at Chile’s Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos and a co-study author, noted that existing planet-formation models struggle to explain how such a massive world could form so far from its star in such a short timeframe. Current theories predict that building a Jupiter-sized planet at Jupiter’s distance from the Sun takes about five million years, and even longer farther out.
Solving a Decade-Old Planetary Mystery
This confirmation settles a dispute that emerged about ten years ago, after the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile first detected a gap in the disk of the young star. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope later spotted a faint point of light inside that gap.
Astronomers initially debated whether the glowing dot was actually a planet or an imaging artifact. To settle the question, Bernardi’s team turned to the Keck Observatory Archive, pulling observations captured in 2018 and 2020. By combining those images, researchers tracked the object’s motion and proved it moved like an orbiting planet rather than a background star.
Alice Zurlo, a professor at Universidad Diego Portales and co-author of the study, explained that the planet occupies a developmental stage where theoretical models fail to accurately predict mass and brightness. Once researchers can measure its mass more precisely, the system will allow scientists to recalibrate their models.
How Multiple Observatories Caught a Newborn World
Finding baby planets remains exceptionally difficult because stars are born inside dense clouds of dust that obscure early development. Most of the roughly 6,000 confirmed exoplanets have been discovered through transits—the dimming that occurs when a planet crosses in front of its star. Those methods favor older planets in tight orbits.
To bypass this limitation, researchers relied on a coronagraph at the Keck Observatory, which blocks the blinding glare of the central star to reveal fainter objects nearby. Bernardi emphasized that the discovery depended on multiple facilities working together, building on initial data from ALMA and the Very Large Telescope.
Did you know?
Elias 2-24 b orbits about 10 times farther from its host star than Jupiter does from our Sun, sitting at the limit of what today’s telescopes can detect.
The Next Era of Exoplanet Detection
Future discoveries will rely heavily on advanced space-based hardware. Featuring the most powerful coronagraph ever deployed in space, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on August 30 and recently recorded its first light.
The instrument is designed to detect planets 100 million times fainter than their host stars. Cieza noted that new tools like the Roman Space Telescope will make finding newborn worlds easier, opening a new chapter in the study of planetary evolution and providing direct clues about what our own solar system may have looked like billions of years ago.
Frequently Asked Questions About Elias 2-24 b
What makes Elias 2-24 b the youngest exoplanet?
Elias 2-24 b is estimated to be less than a million years old, making it significantly younger than the previous record-holders, which are all over five million years old.
How far away is Elias 2-24 b from Earth?
The newborn planet is located approximately 450 light-years away from Earth.
How did astronomers finally confirm the planet exists?
Researchers used archival coronagraph data from the W. M. Keck Observatory captured in 2018 and 2020. By tracking its movement over time, they confirmed it was orbiting the star rather than acting as a background star or imaging flaw.
Which telescopes were used in this discovery?
The research drew on data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.
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