World first as new planet is captured in its infancy

ASTRONOMERS believe they have obtained the first direct evidence of a new planet being born.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the team from the Observatoire de Paris photographed a dense, swirling disc of dust and gas around a young star called AB Aurigae, about 520 light years away from Earth.

A ‘twist’ near the centre of the disc is a sign a new world may be forming. Connecting spirals ‘allow gas and dust to accrete on to the forming planet and make it grow’, the researchers say.