🪐 The image of our own Solar System 1000 times younger

Observing the birth of a planetary system in real time is an extraordinary spectacle, offered for the first time by a team of astronomers.

Their instruments have captured two planets in the process of forming around the young star WISPIT 2. This observation projects us more than 4 billion years into the past, to the era when our own Solar System was emerging, giving us a glimpse of our own origin.


Located 437 light-years away, WISPIT 2 is only 5.4 million years old, making it about a thousand times younger than our Sun. Around it orbits a thick disk of gas and dust, called a protoplanetary disk, which acts as a true nursery for new worlds. Within this ring-shaped structure, matter gradually clumps together to form planets, a phenomenon described by models but rarely captured in action.

Within this disk, researchers have identified two planets, named WISPIT 2b and WISPIT 2c. The first, spotted last year, has a mass five times greater than that of Jupiter and orbits very far from its star. The second, closer in, was recently confirmed thanks to very precise observations. These celestial bodies are in the process of growing, attracting matter around them and carving distinct gaps in the disk, betraying their formation activity.

To detect these planets, astronomers used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and its advanced instruments like SPHERE and GRAVITY+. These tools are capable of distinguishing very faint objects buried in the disk's glow, by detecting their gravitational influence and providing detailed images. A recent upgrade to GRAVITY+ was particularly decisive in authenticating the presence of WISPIT 2c, located closer to the star than its companion.


The orbits of these planets carve out empty spaces in the disk, a sign of their active growth. Furthermore, a less defined gap suggests the existence of a third, more distant planet, which future telescopes like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) might identify. According to the researchers, this planetary candidate could have a mass comparable to that of Saturn.

Published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, this study provides access to a privileged view of planetary formation mechanisms. It gives an insight into how systems like our own could have emerged from similar disks. With the next generations of telescopes, astronomers anticipate a multiplication of such direct observations.