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Scientists have observed an enormous planet about nine times the mass of Jupiter at a remarkably early stage of formation - describing it as still in the womb - in a discovery that challenges the current understanding of planetary formation, Reuters reported.

The researchers used the Subaru Telescope located near the summit of an inactive Hawaiian volcano and the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope to detect and study the planet, a gas giant orbiting unusually far from its young host star. Gas giants are planets, like our solar system's largest ones Jupiter and Saturn, composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with swirling gases surrounding a smaller solid core.

"We think it is still very early on in its 'birthing' process," said astrophysicist Thayne Currie of the Subaru Telescope and the NASA-Ames Research Center, lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. "Evidence suggests that this is the earliest stage of formation ever observed for a gas giant."

It is embedded in an expansive disk of gas and dust, bearing the material that forms planets, that surrounds a star called AB Aurigae located 508 light years - the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) - from Earth. This star got a fleeting moment of fame when its image appeared in a scene in the 2021 film "Don't Look Up."

About 5,000 planets beyond our solar system, or exoplanets, have been identified. This one, called AB Aur b, is among the largest. It is approaching the maximum size to be classified as a planet rather than a brown dwarf, a body intermediate between planet and star. It is heated by gas and dust falling into it, according to Reuters.

Planets in the process of formation - called protoplanets - have been observed around only one other star.

Almost all known exoplanets have orbits around their stars within the distance that separates our sun and its most faraway planet Neptune. But this planet orbits three times as far as Neptune from the sun and 93 times Earth's distance from the sun.

Its birth appears to be following a different process than the standard planetary formation model.

"The conventional thinking is that most - if not all - planets form by slow accretion of solids onto a rocky core, and that gas giants go through this phase before the solid core is massive enough to start accreting gas," said astronomer and study co-author Olivier Guyon of the Subaru Telescope and the University of Arizona.

In this scenario, protoplanets embedded in the disk surrounding a young star gradually grow out of dust- to boulder-sized solid objects and, if this core reaches several times Earth's mass, then begin accumulating gas from the disk, Reuters reported.

"This process cannot form giant planets at large orbital distance, so this discovery challenges our understanding of planet formation," Guyon said.

Instead, the researchers believe AB Aur b is forming in a scenario in which the disk around the star cools and gravity causes it to fragment into one or more massive clumps that form into planets.

"There's more than one way to cook an egg," Currie said. "And apparently there may be more than one way to form a Jupiter-like planet."

The star AB Aurigae is about 2.4 times more massive than our sun and almost 60 times brighter. It is about 2 million years old - an infant by stellar standards - compared to about 4.5 billion years for our middle-aged sun. The sun early in its life also was surrounded by a disk that gave rise to Earth and the other planets, according to Reuters.

"New astronomical observations continuously challenge our current theories, ultimately improving our understanding of the universe," Guyon said. "Planet formation is very complex and messy, with many surprises still ahead."

A Nepal Army constable deployed to the UN mission in Congo died in a rebel attack on Tuesday.

The deceased has been identified as Anil Gurung of Gurmakot-14, Surkhet.

Gurung, who was critically injured in the rebel attack, breathed his last during the course of treatment at the Buniya-based Level-2 Hospital, yesterday.

Chief of Army Staff Parshu Ram Sharma expressed condolences on the death of Gurung on behalf of the entire organization.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General António Guterres strongly condemned the attack against peacekeepers serving in the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in Bali, Djugu territory, Ituri province, by suspected members of the Coopérative pour le développement du Congo (CODECO) militia, read a statement issued by the United Nations.

The Secretary-General expresses his deepest condolences to the family of the fallen peacekeeper, as well as to the Government and the people of Nepal.

“The Secretary-General recalls that attacks against United Nations peacekeepers may constitute a war crime. He calls on the Congolese authorities to investigate this incident and swiftly bring those responsible to justice,” the statement read.

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), the state-owned monopoly, hiked the prices of petroleum products on Tuesday.

The NOC has decided to increase Rs5 per litre each in petrol, diesel and kerosene.

As per the new revised rate, the petrol will now cost Rs160 per litre and diesel and kerosene will cost Rs143per litre.

Likewise, the cooking gas will cost Rs1600 per cylinder.

The NOC has also decided to increase the price of aviation fuel for domestic airlines by Rs5 and international carriers by $50 per kilo liter.

Now, the aviation fuel for domestic airlines and foreign companies will cost Rs156per litre and $1.545 per kilo litre.

The United States and Western allies plan to pile additional sanctions on Russia on Wednesday after the emergence of troubling new evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, according to the White House. The new penalties will include a ban on all new investment in Russia, Associated Press reported.

Among the other measures being taken against Russia are greater sanctions on its financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and sanctions on government officials and their family members, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

“The goal is to force them to make a choice,” she said. “The biggest part of our objective here is to deplete the resources that Putin has to continue his war against Ukraine.”

Separately, the Treasury Department moved Tuesday to block any Russian government debt payments with US dollars from accounts at US financial institutions, making it harder for Russia to meet its financial obligations, according to Associated Press.

The Biden administration also announced Tuesday night that it was sending an additional $100 million worth of military assistance to Ukraine. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the new equipment will meet “an urgent Ukrainian need for additional Javelin anti-armor systems.”

President Joe Biden and US allies have worked together to levy a crippling of economic penalties against Russia for invading Ukraine more than a month ago, including the freezing of central bank assets, export controls and the seizing of property, including yachts, that belong to Russia’s wealthy elite. But calls for increased sanctions intensified this week in response to the attacks, killings and destruction in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

The sanctions are intended to further Russia’s economic, financial and technological “isolation” from the rest of the world as a penalty for its attacks on civilians in Ukraine, Psaki said. That isolation is a key aspect of the US strategy, which is premised on the idea that Russia will ultimately lack the resources and equipment to keep fighting a prolonged war in Ukraine.

Psaki said the administration is assessing “additional consequences and steps we can put in place” but underscored that Biden is not weighing any military action.

An increasingly desperate Russia has engaged in military tactics that have outraged much of the wider global community, leading to charges that it is committing war crimes and causing other sanctions. 

Still, almost all of the EU has refrained from an outright ban on Russian oil and natural gas that would likely crush the Russian economy. The US has banned fossil fuels from Russia, while Lithuania blocked natural gas from that country on Saturday, becoming the first of the 27-member EU to do so. The EU executive branch on Tuesday proposed a ban on Russian coal, while Germany’s government intends to end its use of Russian natural gas over the next two years, Associated Press reported.

On Monday, Biden called for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to be tried for war crimes and face new sanctions because of the atrocities and abuses seen around Kyiv after Russian forces pulled back from the Ukrainian capital. The corpses of what appeared to be civilians were seen strewn in yards, many of them likely killed at close range.

Biden said the US and its allies would gather details for a war crimes trial, stressing that Putin has been “brutal” and his actions “outrageous.”