Birth of NEW PLANET captured for first time in breathtaking space photo

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, snapped the infant planet around the dwarf star PDS 70 in deep space.

The photo marks a groundbreaking observation of a gas giant taking shape among a swirling mass of planet-forming material in the star system.

The planet, dubbed PDS 70b, is clearly seen as a bright yellow spot to the right of the star in the centre of the photo.

Initial observations show the gas giant boasts a surface temperature of around 1,000C, making it much hotter than any planet in our own solar system.

At the same time, the planet is about 1.8 billion miles (3billion km) from PDS 70, which is roughly equivalent to the distance between Venus and the sun.

Further analysis shows the gas giant’s mass is at least a few times that of the planet Jupiter.

Miriam Keppler, from the department of Planet and Star Formation, said only a handful of observations have so far seen hints of planets forming in the discs surrounding stars.

She said: “The problem is that until now, most of these planet candidates could just have been features in the disc.”

The incredible photograph was taken with the aid of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), a planet-hunting telescope manned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

In the middle of the photo is a pitch black circle, or a coronagraph, masking the blinding light emanating from the dwarf star.

Blocking out the light helped the astronomers observe the disc around the star and ultimately spot PDS 70.

Without the blacked out mask the gas giant and surrounding material would have been almost impossible to detect.

André Müller, who lead a second team of researchers investigating the gas giant, praised the discovery.

He said: “Keppler’s results give us a new window onto the complex and poorly-understood early stages of planetary evolution.

“We need to observe a planet in a young star’s disc to really understand the processes behind planetary formation.”

Special SPHERE instrumentation onboard the VLT further helped the scientist gouge the brightness of the planet at varying wavelengths and deduce the properties of its atmosphere.

Thomas Henning, director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy said: “After more than a decade of enormous efforts to build this high-tech machine, now SPHERE enables us to reap the harvest with the discovery of baby planets.”

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