Astronomers discover monster exoplanet hiding in ‘stellar fog’

Astronomers have discovered a giant planet up to ten times the size of Jupiter hidden in the dense gas and dust around the young star MP Mus, about 280 light-years away. Using data from ALMA and the ESA’s Gaia mission, they detected the massive gas giant in the star’s protoplanetary disk—marking Gaia’s first such exoplanet discovery. This rare find, only the fourth strong detection of a planet in such a disk, could aid future searches for newborn planets around young stars, Space.com has reported.