Even by astronomical standards it is a discovery that is out of this world.

Scientists have for the first time witnessed the birth of a planet, a huge gas giant many times the size of Jupiter, swirling into existence 370 light years from Earth.

The theory of how gas planets form from a vortex of hydrogen and helium molecules captivated by their own gravity, is now widely accepted by scientists. But it has never been seen before, until now.

Today scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg and the SPHERE instrument consortium at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, released a spectacular image of the birth

The planet, currently known as PDS 70b, is shown orbiting within a huge spinning ‘protoplanetary disc’ of gas and dust, which proves it is continuing to accumulate matter, and so is not yet fully formed.