Overview
- Researchers published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters reporting that Elias 2-24 b is under one million years old, still accreting material, and lies roughly 55 astronomical units from its star.
- The team estimated the planet’s mass at about 1.9 to 4 times Jupiter and showed it is bound to its star by reprocessing archival ALMA, VLT and Keck/NIRC2 vortex‑coronagraph images.
- The confirmation relied on tracking a faint point first hinted at in ALMA disk gaps and VLT data, then following its motion in Keck archival images from earlier years to rule out a background object.
- Finding a Jupiter‑mass world so young and so far from its star strains standard core‑accretion models and suggests either much faster core growth, alternative formation routes, or missing physics in current theories.
- The discovery, led from Universidad Diego Portales as part of the Odisea survey and involving international coauthors, highlights the value of archival coronagraphy and motivates targeted follow‑up with next‑generation instruments.