Hubble maps 13-billion-year-old planet

The oldest planet ever discovered in the universe – a 13-billion-year-old Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a sun-like star 5,600 light years away – has been mapped by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope.

However, it is "very improbable" that the planet ever hosted life. It is likely that the planet is a gas giant, without a solid surface like the Earth – as it was formed so early in the life of the universe, it probably does not have abundant quantities of elements such as carbon and oxygen.

The planet is 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter, takes a century to complete each orbit of its sun and has had "a remarkable history" in an "unlikely, rough neighbourhood" - orbiting a pair of burned-out stars in the crowded core of a globular star cluster.

Its existence provides "compelling evidence" that the first planets were formed rapidly, within a billion years of the Big Bang – leading astronomers to conclude that planets may be more abundant in the universe than previously thought.

"Our Hubble measurement offers tantalizing evidence that planet formation processes are quite robust and efficient at making use of a small amount of heavier elements. This implies that planet formation happened very early in the universe," said Steinn Sigurdsson of Pennsylvania State University.

The planet has had a rough road over the last 13 billion years. When it was born, it probably orbited its yellow sun at approximately the same distance Jupiter is from our Sun. The planet survived blistering ultraviolet radiation, supernova radiation, and shockwaves, which ravaged the young globular cluster in a furious firestorm of star birth in its early days.

(GMcG)