New oldest planet

Roll over, Jupiter. Scientists have discovered a planet that's more than twice your size. And it's eons older. Earth, Jupiter, and the seven other planets orbiting our sun formed about four billion years ago. But this new planet, by far the oldest ever discovered, formed just a billion years after the big bang, the cosmic explosion that scientists think created the universe nearly 14 billion years ago.

The oldest planet breaks other records, too. It's the first planet yet discovered to orbit not one but two stars. And it's also the farthest from Earth-a marathon 7,200 light-years away! That's almost 500 million times farther from Earth than the Sun is.

So far, only 100 or so planets have been found outside our solar system, and most of them are about the same age as Earth. Scientists thought that all planets were formed from the clumped-together dust of dying stars, but this theory doesn't explain the birth of a planet almost as old as all the oldest stars in the universe. So astronomers are considering new ideas about planet formation-and searching for other old planets. Now that we've found one, powerful telescopes may help spot many more.

-Rachel Young

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Nov/Dec 2003
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