A young planet for a young year. Astronomers have found the youngest exoplanet yet. Orbiting a Sun-like star 180 light-years from Earth, the planet is believed to be bewteen 8 and 10 million years old. By contrast, Earth is around 4.5 billion years old.
Numbers aside, the new planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" several times more massive than Jupiter, is still within a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust that orbits the parent star. Scientists have long theorized that planets form in just such disks, but this is the first time we've been able to directly link a new planet with such a disk.
That achievement probably won't make any of the evening news broadcasts, but it's not bad for a species that has struggled not only to simply survive on Earth but to understand the big picture. Let's start the new year on that optimistic note.
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