A team of German scientists, led by Miriam Keppler, managed to photograph the formation of a new planet in a distant solar system. The photo is the result of several years of observation by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. The planet, dubbed PDS 70b, is 370 light years away from Earth, orbiting a much brighter star, and surrounded by a lot of gas and dust from the star formation. The Institute managed to capture the photo despite all of these difficulties when PDS 70b just happened to be in a gap between the star formation debris.
NPR interviewed Miriam Keppler and her team on July 3, 2018. To hear the full interview and to read a transcription of the full interview, click here.