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BY Salma ghazala
A Planet Born?
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It has been posted recently on The Wall Street Journal that Astronomers may have spotted what could be a planet in its process of being born in another solar system. This is an even that may shed light on how planets are formed. A team of researchers said the protoplanet has a mass that could be at least the size of Jupiter, and two or three times its size. It is located about 335 light years from Earth, within the Milky Way. "If we are correct, this is the first time we are seeing a planet forming inside its natal environment," said Sascha Quanz, an astronomer at the Swiss university ETH Zurich and leader of the team.
Spotting the earliest birth stages of a planet is very hard. In 2011, like wise, astronomers said they had discovered a protoplanet. However, some signs indicated it was an older unit. So if it continues to the expectations, this lattes finding would be one of the first direct observations of the very early stages of a planet's birth.