Youngest New 'Alien Planet' Ever Found Is Around 5,000 Times Younger Than Earth, Astronomers Say

Elias 2-24 b is the youngest known exoplanet, giving astronomers a rare look at a giant planet still forming (Credit: Trent Schindler, National Science Foundation / Wikimedia Commons)

Astronomers have confirmed Elias 2-24 b, a giant exoplanet less than one million years old, as the youngest known planet detected so far.

The finding, reported in a study published on 16 September, concerns a world orbiting a young star about 450 light-years from Earth and still embedded in the gas-and-dust disc where it formed.