This new planet is bizarre and may have a lot of answers in terms of our own solar system formation:

The Gemini Planet Imager has discovered and photographed its first planet, a methane-enshrouded gas giant much like Jupiter that may hold the key to understanding how large planets form in the swirling accretion disks around stars.

In December 2104, GPI began searching hundreds of nearby young stars, and after a mere month, University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow Robert De Rosa began looking at the initial data. He soon noticed something large orbiting a young star in a triple-star system only 100 light years from Earth. He and graduate student Jason Wang summoned the GPI team, which confirmed the planet.

Let’s find out more and check out a video covering this planet on page 2

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