Scientists discovered a planet in space 1500 times smaller than Earth, know the complete details of this ‘baby planet’ with age.

Science News Desk – Scientists have discovered a planet that is still in its infancy. This planet named TIDYE-1b is only 3 million years old. It is also called IRAS 04125+2902 b. The age of the Earth is estimated at 4.5 billion years. In this respect, this ‘baby planet’ is about 1500 times smaller than our Earth. TIDYE-1b is not as dense as Earth, but about 11 times larger in diameter. This discovery can give scientists important information about the early stages of planet formation.

TIDYE-1b was discovered by Madison Barber, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina (UNC). His study has been published in the journal ‘Nature’. Barber discovered TIDYE-1b using the transit method in which a planet passes in front of its star, causing the brightness to fade and the star to appear before the viewer. This ‘baby planet’ was discovered with the help of NASA’s TESS telescope.

Why is this small star so rare to discover?
Before TIDYE-1b, more than a dozen young planets, 10–40 million years old, have been discovered by the transit method. TIDYE-1b is much smaller than all of them. This is a rare discovery, because under normal circumstances such young planets are usually covered with gas and dust in what is called a ‘protoplanetary disk’. This is a debris field that orbits a star like a ring, from which new planets form.

“Planets typically form from a flat disk of dust and gas, which is why the planets in our solar system are aligned in a ‘pancake-like’ arrangement,” said UNC Associate Professor Andrew Mann. But in the case of TIDYE-1b, the disk is tilted, misaligned with both the planet and its star. This is a turning point that challenges our current understanding of planetary formation.’