First Time Mankind Has Captured Event

For the first time in human history, scientists have captured imagery that shows a planet being born.

The planet, which orbits the star PDS 70, is an estimated 5 or 6 million years old, according to the findings published Monday in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. A team of more than 100 scientists studied the imagery captured by the Very Large Telescope, which is based in Chile, and found the new planet, named PDS 70 b, circling the star.

"It's a long-lasting and careful process," André Muller, who worked at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, told NPR. "We worked for at least a year on it on a daily basis."

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By studying the photos, the researchers were able to conclude that the planet was so new because it was still close to the location of its birthplace, and might have still been finishing its formation. They estimate PDS 70 b to be a very large planet – several times larger than Jupiter, according to a press release from the European Southern Observatory.

PDS 70 b is believed to take about 120 Earth years to make a full orbit, and has surface temperatures of more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, the study also said. The planet's host star is located about 370 light-years from Earth, according to the report.

The scientists hope this documentation will allow them to better understand how planets formed in our own solar system – including Earth.

"(Lead study author Miriam Keppler’s) results give us a new window onto the complex and poorly understood early stages of planetary evolution," said Muller in the press release. "We needed to observe a planet in a young star’s disc to really understand the processes behind planet formation."