Jun 14, 2013 10:12 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Astronomers have discovered a new infant planet that could potentially challenge existing knowledge of how planets come into existence, Space.com reported.

The research team discovered TW Hydrae, a red dwarf located approximately 176 light years from Earth, with NASA's Hubble Telescope. It presented them with new questions about planetary formation.

First, TW Hydrae lies 7.5 billion miles away from its host star, which is twice the distance Pluto is from the sun. The planet is also believed to be anywhere from six to 28 times the size of Earth, but is still considered small, about the half the mass of the sun.

Second, its host star is about 8 million years old, which was not previously believed to be old enough to support planets, let alone a planet 7.5 billion miles away.

Third, by scientific standards to date, it would have taken TW Hydrae 200 times longer to form than a planet in Jupiter's position in our solar system. Jupiter is 500 million miles away from the sun and it took 10 million years to form. TW Hydrae should have taken 2 billion years to form.

TW Hydrae, found in the Hydra (sea serpent) constellation, defies conventional thought just by existing.

"If the mass of this suspected planet is as low as it seems to be, this presents a real puzzle," astrophysicist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study, said in a statement. "Theory would say that it cannot exist!"

But the planet is causing scientists to believe that planets can form rapidly - within a few thousand years - by its protoplanetary disk becoming gravitationally unstable and collapsing on itself.

"If we can actually confirm that there's a planet there, we can connect its characteristics to measurements of the gap properties," study lead author John Debes, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., said in a statement. "That might add to planet formation theories as to how you can actually form a planet very far out."

The study will be published Friday (June 14) in The Astrophysical Journal.

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit