A Catholic Citizen in America

WISPIT 2 is a protostar, a very young star that’s still growing. At the moment, it’s roughly as massive as our Sun, and very roughly a third of the way to Kappa Aquila: a very bright, very hot, star that’s about 11,000,000 years old.

WISPIT 2 is also noteworthy because scientists got a photo of one of its planets: WISPIT 2B, a whacking great — no, I’ll let someone with NASA explain it.¹

“Discovery Alert: ‘Baby’ Planet Photographed in a Ring around a Star for the First Time!”
Chelsea Gohd, Science, NASA (September 30, 2025)

“The (Proto) Planet:
“WISPIT 2b

“The Discovery:
“Researchers have discovered a young protoplanet called WISPIT 2b embedded in a ring-shaped gap in a disk encircling a young star. While theorists have thought that planets likely exist in these gaps (and possibly even create them), this is the first time that it has actually been observed.

“Key Takeaway:
“Researchers have directly detected – essentially photographed – a new planet called WISPIT 2b, labeled a protoplanet because it is an astronomical object that is accumulating material and growing into a fully-realized planet. However, even in its ‘proto’ state, WISPIT 2b is a gas giant about 5 times as massive as Jupiter. This massive protoplanet is just about 5 million years old, or almost 1,000 times younger than the Earth, and about 437 light-years from Earth.

“Being a giant and still-growing baby planet, WISPIT 2b is interesting to study on its own, but its location in this protoplanetary disk gap is even more fascinating. Protoplanetary disks are made of gas and dust that surround young stars and function as the birthplace for new planets.

Within these disks, gaps or clearings in the dust and gas can form, appearing as empty rings. Scientists have long suggested that these growing planets are likely responsible for clearing the material in these gaps…”

Basically, this is a big deal because this is the first visual evidence we’ve found that planets grow in these gaps.

WISPIT 2: Infrared Images

Now, I like and appreciate the effort artist-scientists put into images like the one at the top of this post. They’re an excellent was of showing us what researchers are finding.

But they’re illustrations. They’re visual representations, showing the forms of objects which often wouldn’t be visible, even if we were close enough.

I gather that the newly-made photos of the WISPIT 2 system show what it looks like in infrared light: light with wavelengths longer than what our eyes can detect.

Normally I’d dive down rabbit holes until I learned which wavelengths were involved.

But I’m doing something else this week. So I’ll just run through what I found Wednesday afternoon, and leave it at that.

The “Magellan Telescope in Chile” is probably the twin Magellan Telescopes. The Giant Magellan Telescope is, the last I checked, still under construction.

They’re both/all optical telescopes, but apparently some of their instruments are sensitive to part of the infrared band, too.

The LBT, Large Binocular Telescope, is another double instrument. It’s LBTI/LMIRcam ‘sees’ in the 2.9 to 5.2 micron range: which is in the frequency range that we call infrared light.²

Definitions: WISPIT and Stellar Associations

Let’s see. What else?

WISPIT stands for WIde Separation Planets In Time: a sky survey that’s finding giant planets in orbits that are wider than expected.

Current theoretical models for how planets form don’t fit what we’re finding: which means we’ll be learning something new. And that’s exciting. For me, at any rate.

WIPSIT 2b is already about five times as massive as Jupiter. If it was circling our Sun, it’d be past the far side of the Kuiper belt. Again: doesn’t fit current models, which is cool.

WISPIT 2 is “part of the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association, likely belonging to the subgroup Theia 53” (Wikipedia).

Stellar associations? Very briefly, stars, gas, dust, and all the other stuff in our galaxy is moving. Astronomers have been getting better at tracking where in space stars are, which way they’re moving, and how fast.

They found that many stars are moving in roughly the same direction, and at roughly the same speed, as other stars. They call these groups of stars stellar associations.

The Scorpius-Centaurus association is an OB association, which means that its stars are massive, bright, and young — as stars go. My guess is that either WISPIT 2 has a lot of growing left to do, or that OB associations also contain smaller young stars. Or maybe something completely different.

There’s almost certainly an answer to how the definition of OB associations works, but finding and confirming it would take more time than I like.

I’m also pretty sure that WISPIT 2 is actually part of the Scorpius-Centaurus association, although illustrations showing where that particular group of stars is doesn’t include the constellation Aquila. Not in the sources I checked.³

A Great Deal Left to Learn

These are exciting times.

I grew up in a world where scientists thought there could be planets orbiting other stars, but nobody had found one.

The last I checked, scientists have confirmed and cataloged upwards of 3,000 exoplanets; with a great many more ‘probables’ awaiting scrutiny. (After posting, I looked it up — as of October 2, 2025, there are 6,022 confirmed exoplanets.)

We’re finding planetary systems ‘under construction’, where the fusion fires of the star haven’t yet started burning, and the planets are still forming.⁴

Scientists have been learning a very great deal about planets, stars, and how they’re forming: and are learning that there is a great deal left to learn.

Sound familiar? I’ve talked about this before:

• “Vega, a Closer Look: Smooth Disc, No Planets, Starspots” (November 9, 2024)
  • Spiky Stars and Fomalhaut’s Planet That Isn’t There (Probably)
  • 46 Centuries of Thinking About This Universe, Briefly
• “Surrounded by Beauty and Wonders: T Tauri Stars and Nebulae” (November 2, 2024)
  • God, the Universe, Science, and Me
• “Colliding Planets Near ASASSN-21qj: Maybe” (January 6, 2024)
  • Uncertainty and Science
• “TRAPPIST-1 and the Mysterious Pea Pod Planets” (April 8, 2023)
  • Working Out How Suns and Planets Form
• “Big Planet, Wide Orbit, Unsolved Mystery: b Centauri(AB)b” (December 18, 2021)
  • Incomplete and Growing Knowledge
  • It’s There, But How?

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¹ Another newly-found planet:

• “Discovery Alert: ‘Baby’ Planet Photographed in a Ring around a Star for the First Time!” Chelsea Gohd, Science, NASA (September 30, 2025)
• Wikipedia
  • Aquila (constellation)
  • Kappa Aquilae
  • Protostar
  • WISPIT 2

² Telescopes and a star:

• Wikipedia
  • Giant Magellan Telescope
  • Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)
    • Instruments
  • Magellan Telescopes
  • WISPIT 2

³ Details and definitions:

• “WIde Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT):” Richelle F. van Capelleveen, Matthew A. Kenworthy, Christian Ginski, Eric E. Mamajek, Alexander J. Bohn, Rico Landman, Tomas Stolker, Yapeng Zhang, Nienke van der Marel, Ignas Snellen; (August 25, 2025) via arXiv
• Wikipedia
  • Kuiper belt
  • OB association
  • Scorpius-Centaurus association
  • Solar System
  • Stellar kinematics
    • OB associations
  • WISPIT 2

⁴ Planetary systems under construction (and a “List of planets” that I hadn’t checked while writing this):

• Wikipedia
  • Lists of planets
  • List of stars with proplyds (a “very incomplete” list)
  • Protoplanetary disk