Astronomers have confirmed Elias 2-24 b, a planet estimated to be less than one million years old—the youngest known exoplanet at the time of NASA’s September 16, 2026 announcement. The Jupiter-mass world remains embedded in the disk of gas and dust around its star, roughly 450 light-years from Earth. Its age and distant orbit challenge current ideas about how quickly giant planets can form.
What makes Elias 2-24 b the youngest known exoplanet?
NASA reported the confirmation on September 16, 2026, describing Elias 2-24 b as less than one million years old. Before the announcement, NASA characterized the record as a four-way tie: two planets around PDS 70 and two around WISPIT 2, all more than five million years old. The new estimate makes Elias 2-24 b substantially younger than those earlier record holders.
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“Youngest known” is the important qualification: the record refers to planets astronomers have detected and confirmed, not necessarily the youngest planet that exists. The age and other figures here are rounded values in NASA’s announcement; the accessible news report does not give uncertainty ranges for the age or mass.
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The confirmation combined observations from several observatories with images taken years earlier. Astronomers had reason to question whether the faint light in the disk was a planet, a background star, or an imaging artifact. The source’s apparent youth also made the interpretation surprising under existing formation models.
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- ALMA mapped a gap: Earlier observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array showed a gap in the dusty disk around Elias 2-24.
- The VLT found a faint source: The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope detected a point of light within that gap. Coronagraph observations suppressed the bright host star’s light so the fainter source could be seen.
- Keck archive images provided a time baseline: Andrea Bernardi’s team searched the NASA-funded Keck Observatory Archive and recovered observations from 2018 and 2020. Comparing the source’s positions over time showed motion more consistent with an orbiting planet than with a fixed background object or imaging defect.
- The team confirmed Elias 2-24 b: NASA describes the result as a multi-observatory confirmation, not a discovery made with one new observation or a consumer telescope.
Most known exoplanets have been found using the transit method, which detects a star’s slight dimming when a planet passes in front of it. For a young planet still embedded in dusty material and on a wide orbit, direct imaging and a multi-year check of its motion were central to this confirmation. NASA’s account is available in its announcement.
What is known about the Elias 2-24 system?
| Property | Reported information |
|---|---|
| Host star | Elias 2-24, about 450 light-years from Earth (NASA Science, 2026) |
| Planet age | Less than one million years (NASA Science, 2026) |
| Planet mass | About the mass of Jupiter (NASA Science, 2026) |
| Separation from its star | About 55 times the Earth–Sun distance (NASA Science, 2026) |
| Location in the system | Within a prominent gap in the star’s disk of gas and dust |
NASA’s announcement says material from the disk is actively accreting onto the planet. That is the report’s account of the system, rather than something observable with an amateur telescope. The news report does not provide detailed measurement uncertainties or the full observing analysis; those details require the journal paper.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why is this discovery challenging planet-formation models?
Planets form from material left around young stars, but the earliest stages are difficult to observe: dust can obscure them, and many telescopes cannot detect very faint, young worlds. In this case, the planet is reported to be Jupiter-mass and about 55 Earth–Sun distances from its star, yet younger than one million years.
NASA says current models predict roughly five million years to form a Jupiter-size planet at Jupiter’s distance from the Sun, and longer at greater distances. Elias 2-24 b’s reported age and much wider orbit therefore pose a challenge. The finding shows a mismatch between this observed system and those model expectations; it does not establish which process or combination of processes explains the planet’s rapid formation.
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Study co-author Lucas Cieza said the result highlights that “even our best planet-formation models are still missing some important processes.” Bernardi’s team lead also noted why the disk gap mattered: “The planets should be found within the gaps, since they are carving them.”
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What the discovery does—and does not—tell us
- It establishes a confirmed record-holder: NASA reported Elias 2-24 b as the youngest known planet at the time of its announcement.
- It adds evidence about early planet formation: The planet’s reported age, mass, and distance give astronomers a particularly young giant world to compare with formation models.
- It does not identify the missing formation process: The confirmation raises a model challenge but does not resolve it.
- It is not an Earth-like or habitable-world claim: NASA describes a Jupiter-mass planet in a remote, actively forming disk.
- It is not an amateur observing target: The source is about 450 light-years away, and the confirmation depended on professional coronagraph imaging and archival observations.
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