Legend has it that Isaac Newton first conceived of the concept of universal gravitation after an apple fell on his head, though the infamous piece of fruit may have actually just landed on the ground nearby. Nevertheless, accidents and serendipity have long played a significant role in scientific advancement.
This was the case for Thayne Currie, an astrophysicist at the NASA-Ames Research Center and the Subaru Telescope. Currie may have discovered the youngest-ever protoplanet, along with evidence of a controversial theory of planet formation, as reported in a recent Nature Astronomy study.
It all began in 2016, when he was trying to study a star with three possible protoplanets around it. Suddenly, Currie ran into a problem. “For whatever reason, our instrument couldn’t lock onto the star well,” he explains. “That was my primary plan for the night, so I had to come up with another plan — immediately.”
