Scientists spot birth of giant planet

Astronomers using a powerful telescope in southern Chile said Thursday they have captured the first direct image of a protoplanet forming around another star, still embedded in thick gas and dust.

An international team of researchers said the disc of gas and dust surrounding the young star HD 100546, located 335 light years from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy, would be a gas giant similar to Jupiter. “So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations,” said lead scientist Sascha Quanz, an astronomer at Swiss university ETH Zurich. “If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage.”