The youngest planets in the Milky Way: triplets discovered around baby star

HD 163296, which is 330 light years from Earth, is not an especially spectacular star. It is approximately twice as heavy as our sun, and belongs to the class of Herbig Ae/Be stars. These are very young stars (HD 163296 is 4 million years old) that are still on their way to the main series. Hydrogen fusion has not yet ignited in its interior. Instead, the radiated energy comes from its contraction.

At the end of 2016, the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered a pronou...