Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2026

46 ASTRO PUBLISHING A Solar System in the making? by ESO Bárbara Ferreira T his image shows two planets forming around the young star WISPIT 2. The images at the top were obtained with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) using the SPHERE instrument, specifically de- signed to directly image exoplanets. Planet WISPIT 2 b was discovered in 2025, with hints of another one, WISPIT 2 c, orbiting closer to the star. To con- firm that this new object is indeed a planet and not an extended clump of material within the disc, as- tronomers observed it with the GRAVITY+ instru- ment at the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The VLTI combines the light of several telescopes and is therefore sensitive to very small details. Using GRAVITY+, the team confirmed that that the new object is a point-like source and not an extended cloud within the disc. Moreover, the spectrum ob- tained with GRAVITY+, displayed here in the bot- tom panel, shows light absorbed by carbon mon- oxide, a molecule common in the atmosphere of gas giant planets. This further confirms that WISPIT 2 c is indeed a young exoplanet around this star. [ESO/C. Lawlor, R. F. van Capelleveen et al.]