In this artist's illustration, infalling hydrogen gas causes the growing protoplanet WISPIT 2b to shine brightly in the hydrogen alpha spectrum, to which the MagAO-X instrument is particularly sensitive. (Credit: Joseph Olmsted/STScI/NASA)
In A Nutshell
- Astronomers directly imaged WISPIT 2b, a young giant planet about five times Jupiter’s mass, still pulling in gas and dust as it grows.
- The planet sits between two bright rings of dust in its star’s disk, the first confirmed case of an actively feeding planet found in a ring gap rather than a wide inner cavity.
- Researchers found that all known planets of this type appear in star systems tilted 37°–52° to Earth, a pattern with only ~1% chance of being random. This may reveal a “sweet spot” angle for detecting newborn planets.
- The system also hosts a puzzling inner object, CC1, which could be a planet about nine times Jupiter’s mass or a dense dust clump.
- Catching WISPIT 2b in its youth offers a rare “baby picture” of how giant worlds form and reshape their star systems.
TUCSON, Ariz. — Scientists have found a massive baby planet that’s still feeding and growing in space. The planet, called WISPIT 2b, weighs about five times more than Jupiter and sits between two rings of dust and debris around a young star. This is the first time astronomers have spotted a growing planet in this type of location.
The star system is 433 light-years away from Earth. The baby planet glows red as it eats gas and dust from around it. But scientists discovered something surprising: every feeding planet like this one is found in star systems that are tilted at similar angles when viewed from Earth. This pattern is so unlikely that it would happen by chance only 1% of the time.
Solving a Space Mystery
For years, scientists have seen dark gaps between bright rings around young stars. They suspected planets were creating these gaps by clearing out material as they formed, like a snowplow pushing snow off a road. But they couldn’t find the planets responsible.
“It’s been a point of tension, actually, in the literature and in astronomy in general, that we have these really dark gaps, but we cannot detect the faint exoplanets in them,” said lead researcher Laird Close, from the University of Arizona, in a statement. “Many have doubted that protoplanets can make these gaps, but now we know that in fact, they can.”
The planet glows red because hydrogen gas gets extremely hot when it falls onto the planet’s surface. “As planets form and grow, they suck in hydrogen gas from their surroundings,” explains Close. “And as that gas crashes down on them like a giant waterfall coming from outer space and hits the surface, it creates extremely hot plasma, which in turn, emits this particular H-alpha light signature.”
Advanced Telescopes Spot Hidden Planet
Finding such a dim object next to a bright star required powerful telescopes with special technology. The team used a system called MagAO-X on a telescope in Chile that fixes the blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere, making space objects appear much sharper.
“MagAO-X is specially designed to look for hydrogen gas falling onto young protoplanets, and that’s how we can detect them,” Close said. “Once we turned on the adaptive optics system, the planet jumped right out at us.” “After combining two hours’ worth of images, it just popped out.”
The team double-checked their discovery using another telescope in Arizona that looks at infrared light, confirming the planet weighs about five times more than Jupiter.
Why Viewing Angle Matters for Planet Detection
When scientists looked at other known feeding planets, they found all of them exist in star systems tilted between 37 and 52 degrees when viewed from Earth. In their sample, about 80% of planets in this angle range were detected, while 0% were found outside this range. The combination of these patterns has only about a 1% chance of happening randomly.
The researchers think these particular angles give telescopes the best view of where hot gas crashes into the planet and glows. Star systems tilted differently might hide similar planets behind dust or other obstacles.
This discovery could help astronomers search more efficiently by focusing on star systems tilted at these optimal angles.
Additional Mysteries in the WISPIT System
The scientists also found a second mysterious object closer to the star. This companion, called CC1, sits about as far from its star as Uranus is from our Sun. Unlike the outer planet, it doesn’t glow red, suggesting it’s not actively feeding.
Based on how bright and red it appears, CC1 could be another planet wrapped in dust, or it might be an unusual clump of debris. If it were a planet, it would weigh about nine times more than Jupiter.
“Around WISPIT 2, you likely have two planets, four rings, and four gaps. It’s an amazing system,” Close said. The outer planet orbits much farther out than any planet in our solar system, even well beyond Neptune.
This star system is only about 5 million years old, which is very young in space terms. Graduate student Gabriel Weible explained: “It’s a bit like what our own Jupiter and Saturn would have looked like when they were 5,000 times younger than they are now.”
The discovery supports the idea that growing planets can clear out material along their paths by sweeping up or scattering debris. With modern telescopes, astronomers can now watch these processes happen in real time.
Paper Summary
Methodology
MagAO-X observations in H-alpha were obtained in April 2025 at the Magellan Clay Telescope and processed with angular spectral differential imaging to separate the planet’s light from starlight. Additional infrared observations with the Large Binocular Telescope (LMIRcam) helped estimate the planet’s mass. The team also examined all known H-alpha protoplanets to look for patterns in system inclinations.
Results
The study reports WISPIT 2b, a ~5.3-Jupiter-mass protoplanet at about 56–58 AU deprojected. Its H-alpha emission indicates active accretion. Known H-alpha protoplanets occur in systems tilted 37–52 degrees; in the sample, detections cluster inside that range (~80%) and are absent outside (0%), a combined pattern with ~1% probability of being random. A second object (CC1) was detected closer to the star and may be an inner planet or a dust structure.
Limitations
The inclination analysis is limited by a small sample (about four well-established H-alpha protoplanet systems), giving a ~2.6σ level that is suggestive rather than definitive. The nature of CC1 remains uncertain. Age and model assumptions introduce uncertainties in the mass estimates.
Funding and Disclosures
Support came from NASA’s Exoplanet Research Program, NSF MRI awards, and the Heising-Simons Foundation, with collaboration through NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science.
Publication Information
Close, L. M., van Capelleveen, R. F., Weible, G., et al. “Wide Separation Planets in Time (WISPIT): Discovery of a Gap H-alpha Protoplanet WISPIT 2b with MagAO-X.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2025, 990, L9.
