Possible new gas giant planet discovered by team led by Galway scientists 

A close-up of the star RIK 113, seen here surrounded by a cloud of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disc.

An international research team, led by astronomers from the University of Galway, have discovered the likely site of a new 'gas giant' planet.

The new potential planet, which the team says is up to several times the mass of Jupiter, was discovered using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

The team captured images around a distant young star, revealing a “new planet-forming disk” for the first time.

The study was published on Monday in the international journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

It was led by  Christian Ginski from the Centre for Astronomy in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Galway. 

It was co-authored by four postgraduate students at the university: Chloe Lawlor, Jake Byrne, Dan McLachlan and Matthew Murphy.

The disk extends out to 130 astronomical units from its parent star (roughly 130 times the distance between Earth and the Sun) and shows a bright ring followed by a gap centred at roughly 50 astronomical units.

Inside the gap, reminiscent of the outskirts of a hurricane on Earth, a system of spiral arms are visible.

Mr Ginski called the image “something special”.

He added: "Detections like this bring us one step closer to understand how planets form in general and how our solar system might have formed in the distant past.”

The paper’s research team also included colleagues in the UK, Germany, Australia, USA, Netherlands, Italy, Chile, France and Japan.

Based on their research findings, Mr Ginski and his team have secured time at the world-leading James Webb Space Telescope observatory in the upcoming observation cycle.

Using the unprecedented sensitivity of the James Webb Telescope, the team hopes to be able to take an actual image of the young planet. 

If planets in the disk are confirmed, it will become a prime laboratory for the study of planet-disk interaction.