VLT images of two planets forming around the young star WISPIT 2 (IMAGE)
Caption
These images, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) shows a planetary system being born around the young star WISPIT 2. The star is surrounded by a disc of gas and dust –– the raw material out of which planets form and grow. In 2025 a team of astronomers detected a young planet, called WISPIT 2b, carving out a gap in the disc around the star. Now the same team has confirmed the presence of a second planet, WISPIT 2c, orbiting even closer to the star, as shown in the inset.
Both planets are gas giants, similar to Jupiter. WISPIT 2b is almost five times as massive as Jupiter, and orbits the star at a distance 60 times larger than the separation between Earth and the Sun. WISPIT 2c is twice as massive as 2b and orbits the star four times closer.
The images shown here were taken with the SPHERE instrument at the VLT. SPHERE can correct the blur caused by atmospheric turbulence, as well as block the light of the central star, revealing the faint disc and planets around it in great detail. A different instrument, GRAVITY+ on the VLT Interferometer, was also used in the discovery, helping confirm the planetary nature of the observed object.
Credit
ESO/C. Lawlor, R. F. van Capelleveen et al.
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License
CC BY