Ireland has just helped discover a new planet

Researchers at the University of Galway helped make the discovery.

An international team of astronomers, co-led by the University of Galway, made the discovery of planet WISPIT 2b.

The newly discovered planet is about 430 light-years away and is estimated to be around five million years old.

Additionally, it is most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.

WISPIT 2b was detected at an early formation stage around a young version of the Sun.

The use of European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) in the Atacama Desert in Chile is how the discovery came about.

The study was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona and has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Dr Christian Ginski, lecturer at the School of Natural Sciences, University of Galway and second author of the study commented: "We used these really short snapshot observations of many young stars - only a few minutes per object - to determine if we could see a little dot of light next to them that is caused by a planet."

"However, in the case of this star, we instead detected a completely unexpected and exceptionally beautiful multi-ringed dust disk.

"When we saw this multi-ringed disk for the first time, we knew we had to try and see if we could detect a planet within it, so we quickly asked for follow-up observations," he added.

Early career PhD student, Richelle van Capelleveen from Leiden University, co-led the study alongside a graduate team at the University of Galway.

It is only the second time a confirmed planet has been detected at such an early evolutionary stage around a young version of the Sun.

The first was discovered in 2018 by a team also involving Dr Ginski.