Cosmic newborn Elias 2-24 b: the youngest exoplanet ever spotted

Astronomers have identified Elias 2-24 b as the youngest exoplanet on record, likely under a million years old and about as massive as Jupiter, located in a disk of gas and dust around the young star Elias 2-24 roughly 450 light-years away. The discovery was made by reanalyzing archival data from Keck Observatory using a coronagraph, with supporting evidence from previous ALMA and VLT observations. The finding, reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, challenges current planet-formation models and sets the stage for more direct observations with future instruments like NASA’s Roman Space Telescope coronagraph.