WASHINGTON: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has spotted two young planets growing in very different ways around a baby star, helping scientists understand how planets form in space.
The planets are much bigger than Jupiter — the largest planet in our solar system — and orbit a young star called YSES-1, about 310 light-years away in the Milky Way. One planet is surrounded by a disk of dust, while the other has a cloudy atmosphere, showing two different stages of development.
It’s rare to find such young planets. Scientists say this is a big discovery because it shows how complex and unique each planetary system can be.
The star they orbit is only about 16 million years old — very young compared to our 4.5-billion-year-old Sun. Both planets are very far from the star, taking thousands of years to complete a single orbit.
The inner planet, 14 times the mass of Jupiter, has a disk of small dust grains — a sign that it may still be forming, or possibly forming moons. Its atmosphere contains water and carbon monoxide.
The outer planet is about 6 times bigger than Jupiter and has no disk, but its atmosphere is full of silicate clouds, water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane.
“This shows how little we really know about how planets form,” said scientist Kielan Hoch, who led the study. “We expected them to be at the same stage, but they’re clearly not.”
The discovery was published in the journal Nature this week.
