Incredible telescope image shows baby exoplanet being born

WISPIT 2b appears as a small purple dot beside a bright white dust ring encircling its star, with a fainter outer ring visible beyond it in new observations from the Magellan and Large Binocular Telescopes. .

A baby planet has been spotted nestled inside a ring around its young parent star, offering a never-before-seen view of planet formation.

Using the Magellan Telescope in Chile and the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, astronomers have captured a striking new view of a protoplanet named WISPIT 2b — a gas giant in its infancy estimated to be about five times more massive than Jupiter and just five million years old. The baby planet can be seen within a ring-shaped gap in the dusty disk surrounding its young parent star, named WISPIT 2, as it gathers material to grow into a fully realized planet.