In early April 2008, a British space science team from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, announced at a UK Astronomy Meeting in Belfast, Ireland, that they may have discovered the youngest known planet in the universe, orbiting a 100,000 year-old star 520 light years away.
The planet, which appeared on radar observations gathered from the Very Large Array formation in New Mexico, may have formed, the team theorized, when the star HL Tau passed close to star XZ Tau a mere 1,600 years ago. That would mean the clump of rocky material detected orbiting HL Tau might be a proto-planet less than 2,000 years old. The next youngest planet ever discovered, researchers say, is a sprightly 10 million years old.
The planet, named HL Tau b, might develop into a massive gas giant, as it is currently twice the distance from its star as Neptune is from our sun, and 14 times as massive as Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet. However, other scientists maintain that the clump of matter could develop into a brown dwarf star, in which case what researchers discovered was a young binary star system.
Human colonization or the development of life on HL Tau b, should it develop into a planet, scientists say, is impossible due to its distance from HL Tau.
References
Fast Facts
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Approximate age of planet HL Tau b
1,600 years old
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Approximate age of star HL Tau
less than 100,000 years old
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Approximate age of our solar system
4.5 billion years
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Distance from our sun
520 light years (more than 3 quadrillion miles)
