Astronomers hope to be able to speculate on Jupiter's history after finding an exoplanet that resembles a younger version of the gas giant some 100 light years away.
According to The Washington Post, the "Young Jupiter" exoplanet also exists in a solar system to the one Earth resides in. Their work published in the journal Science Express, the researchers spotted planet 51 Eridani b using the Kepler Telescope's Gemini Planet Imager (GPI).
"This is exactly the kind of planet we envisioned discovering when we designed GPI," study co-author James Graham, a professor of astronomy at the University of California - Berkeley and a GPI project scientist, said in a press release. "We wanted to find planets when they're young so we can figure out the formation process."
51 Eri b is in a planetary system about 20 million years old, which pales in comparison to the 4.5 billion years our solar system has been around.
"Finding these exoplanets is difficult," study co-author Rahul I. Patel, a PhD student at Stony Brook University, told The Post. "You're basically looking for a firefly that's really close to a flood lamp, standing about a mile away and looking through a glass of water."
51 Eri b's methane levels are higher than any ever detected on an alien world, which could help scientists better tell Jupiter's history.
"Many of the exoplanets astronomers have studied before have atmospheres that look like very cool stars," study lead author Bruce Macintosh, a professor of physics in the Kavli Institute at Stanford University who led the construction of GPI, said in the release. "This one looks like a planet."
