A planet,a white dwarf, anda neutron starorbit each other inthe giant globular sta cluster M4,some 5,600 light-years away.The most visible member of thetrio is the white dwarf star, indicated above in a imagefrom the Hubble Space Telescope,while the neutron star is detected at radio frequencies a a pulsar.A third body was known to be present in the pulsar/whitedwarf system and a detailed analysis of th Hubbledata has indicated it i indeed a planetwith about 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter.In such a system, the planet is likely to beabout 13 billion years old. Compared to our solar system's tender 4.5 billion yearsand othe identifiedplanets of nearby stars,this truly ancient world is by far the oldest planet known,almost as old as the Universe itself.Its discovery as part of an evolved cosmic trio suggests thatplanet formation spans the age of the Universe and thatthis newly discovered planet is likely only one of many formedin the crowded environsof globular star clusters.
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