Elias 2-24 b Youngest Known Planet Discovered by NASA: All You Need To Know

The astronomers have found the youngest planet ever discovered in the history of humanity, namely Elias 2-24 b with the age of less than 1 million years. This gas giant of the mass of Jupiter is still in the process of formation within its protoplanetary disk. The discovery was announced by NASA on September 16, 2026.

What Is Elias 2-24 b?

Elias 2-24 b is a young gas giant exoplanet which orbits a star named Elias 2-24 located at the distance of 450 light-years from Earth. It has the mass of Jupiter and is still in the process of formation within its protoplanetary disk.

The planet occupies a place in a noticeable gap within the dust disk of the star. Such gaps may be formed due to interaction between forming planets and material of the disk.

Discovery of the Youngest Planet

This discovery came about through observations made at various astronomical facilities.

Several years back, the ALMA facility detected a wide gap in the dusty disk around the star Elias 2-24. Then, VLT of the European Southern Observatory detected a faint object residing in the gap.

But scientists were unable to determine at first whether the object was indeed a planet.

Andrea Bernardi then and his team of researchers took a closer look at archival observations made at the W. M. Keck Observatory. They found the object in 2018 and 2020 observations and tracked its position.

Based on the movement of the object in relation to the host star, the scientists concluded that it was a planet.

How Old Is Elias 2-24 b?

This planet is less than 1 million years old, thus making it substantially younger than any other planets that have previously been discovered.

These four planets orbiting around PDS 70 and WISPIT 2 were all older than 5 million years.

This means that scientists get a unique chance to study the development of a giant planet.

Role of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope

Roman space telescope of NASA was launched on August 30, 2026. This telescope has been anticipated to be helpful in the exploration of young and hard to detect exoplanets.

The reason behind the success of this telescope is its very effective coronagraph that has the ability to stop the light of stars. It has been believed that same methods will help in the discovery of young planets.