This is the stunning multi-ringed disk around the T Tauri star WISPIT 2 with its embedded planet WISPIT 2b that was recently published by Richelle van Capelleveen in a study led by the University of Leiden and co-led by myself at the University of Galway (click). The study was also featured in an ESO picture of the week (click). The images were taken with the SPHERE extreme adaptive optics instrument. In the above figure you see three different methods of cancelling out the bright central star so we can make the faint scattered light coming from the circumstellar disk as well as the thermal emission from the embedded planet WISPIT 2b visible. On the left we use so-called “reference differential imaging”. This means that we subtract the image of a completely unremarkable reference star from the scientific images. This method gives us a combined image of the disk as seen in total intensity scattered light, as well as the planets thermal emission. On the right we use the fact that scattered light is polarized, while stellar light is not, which optimally removes stellar light, but unfortunately also cancels the unpolarized light that we receive from the planet. In the middle we use apparent field rotation of the disk and planet around the star during the course of the night to apply so-called “angular differential imaging”.

The gaps in the disk, which are located at tens to hundreds of astronomical units, are likely caused by forming planets, one of which we directly detected. The planet WISPIT 2b has a mass of roughly 5 times that of Jupiter and orbits the star in a distance of ~57 au.

WISPIT 2b is the first embedded planet detected in a multi-ringed disk around a young analog of our own Sun. Given that the disk shows multiple gaps it is possible that there are additional planets in the system. James Webb Space Telescope observations as well as the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope will be able to shed light on this.