Facebook Favorite, 2021

Witnessing the Birth of a Baby Planet: First image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of the newborn exoplanet PDS70b, orbiting a young star approximately 370 light years away from Earth. Undergraduate researcher Aniket Sanghi applied a technique called angular differential imaging to systematically remove contamination from the host star’s light to uncover the nearly 1000 times fainter planet, seen bottom left in the image. The host star’s position relative to the planet is marked with a white asterisk. The black circle masks the host star’s residual light. Cardinal directions north and east are shown on the top right as arrows. The young planet is actively accreting mass onto itself. This high-fidelity detection enables the detailed characterization of its underlying formation mechanisms.

Credit:
Aniket Sanghi
Astronomy and Physics Undergraduate Student