CoKu Tau/4 is a main sequence Binary T Tauri star system in the constellation of Taurus, the bull. The stars are surrounded by a circumbinary disc with a central cavity of radius 10 astronomical units. Before its binary nature was known, , the central cavity in the system's disc was thought to have been cleared out by a planet of at least 10 Jupiter masses, a rare example of a so-called "transitional disc".This model was disproven in 2008 when the star was resolved using adaptive optics as a system of two near-equal-mass stars with a projected separation of 8 AU. The central cavity is believed cleared out by the stars, not by the gravitational influence of a planet. The hole is 10 times as big as earths orbit around the sun.
The star system is located 420 light years away from our own solar system, and is known to have the most youngest found Exo-planet orbiting the main star. The Exo-planet (not named yet) is less than 1 million years old and may be as massive as Jupiter. Its appearance shows what our planets may have looked like billions of years ago. It's also theorized to have cleared the dust of the disc in the star system as it orbited the parent star.
(Artists illustration of the exo-planet. The colour of the planet is very likely to be because of how it is still newborn)
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Astronomy/space facts
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