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A very hungry planet! πŸͺ

That little dot is WISPIT 2b, a newborn exoplanet. About 5 times the mass of Jupiter, the planet is eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits the host star, a younger version of our Sun 🌞

Taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in #Chile, this image is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2534a/

πŸ“· ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

A white protoplanetary disc at the centre of the picture takes up most of the frame. The elliptical cloud of dust and gas consists of several concentric rings and gaps. In one of the larger gaps there is a little dot: a planet.
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