A young planet, DS TUC Ab, located 150 light-years away from earth has given Dr Benjamin Montet, from Scientia Fellow at University NSW a rare chance to study a planetary system evolve.
"The investigation is to find out how long planetary systems last, and to do this we need systems that are too young to go through dynamical interactions, but old enough to have formed planets. This provides a unique chance for astrophysicists to study a system in development before external influences interfere," Dr. Montet states.
The findings, published in The Astronomical Journal, suggest that the planet orbits a star in a binary system and it formed without being heavily impacted by the gravitational pull of the second star.