Giving Compass' Take:

• Astronomers have sighted a confirmed image of a potential new planet, but only have a snapshot of a bright blob surrounding a star. Still,  this will provide help in advancing scientific research on what exists in outer space. 

• Can donors help with funding for research of new findings in space? How involved is philanthropy now with space ventures? 

• Learn about the work of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and how philanthropy can become involved in astronomy funding and data. 

It is a moment of birth that has previously proved elusive, but astronomers say they now have the first confirmed image of the formation of a planet.

The startling snapshot shows a bright blob – the nascent planet – traveling through the dust and gas surrounding a young star, known as PDS70, thought to be about 370 light years from Earth.

The black circle in the centre of the image, to the left of the planet, is a filter to block the light from the star, enabling other features of the system to be seen.

Captured by the Sphere instrument of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, the planet – a gas giant with a mass greater than Jupiter – is about as far from its star as Uranus is from our sun, with further analyses revealing that it appears to have a cloudy atmosphere and a surface temperature of 1000C.

Read the full article on the birth of a planet by Nicola Davis at The Guardian