by Rachel Kaufman
Published in National Geographic News
2010-06-10

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They’re not the most aww-inspiring baby pictures, but new infrared images prove the youngest known planet outside our solar system does in fact exist—and that planets can grow up fast—a new study says.

Probably only a few million years young, Beta Pictoris b is already fully formed, despite standard models that say such a planet should take ten million years to reach “adulthood,” researchers say. The planet breaks the record once held by the planet BD 20 1790b, which clocked in at 35 million years old.

The new planet is also nearer to its parent star than any other known planet outside our solar system—about as close as Saturn is to our sun.

Located about 63.4 light-years from Earth, that star, named simply Beta Pictoris, is similar to our own star. And like Beta Pictoris b, Beta Pictoris is relatively young—about 12 million years old, compared with the sun’s 4.5 billion years.

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