Astronomers have identified Elias 2-24 b, a planet younger than one million years. NASA’s September report describes it as the youngest known planet at the time of the announcement.
The world remains embedded in the gas and dust surrounding its young star. ALMA observations revealed a gap in that disk, while the Very Large Telescope detected a faint object. Archived Keck observations from 2018 and 2020 helped confirm its motion, supporting the interpretation that it is a planet rather than an unrelated background source.
Its orbit lies roughly 55 astronomical units from the star, far beyond Earth’s distance from the Sun. Finding a planet so young at that separation challenges slower formation scenarios. The system gives researchers an unusually early look at a world still emerging from its birthplace.
Source: NASA report (2026-09-16).
