In May 1998 the press announcement that followed the observation of a young binary in the Taurus constellation took the whole astronomical community aback. However, since it was based on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope (which was then the most sharp-sighted telescope available, able to resolve fine details of distant objects more than 10 billion years old) there was no reason to doubt it. Susan Tereby of the Extrasolar Research Corporation in Pasadena had aimed the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer at the Taurus constellation which is known to host numerous young stars and by chance observed a binary just at the moment of formation (it was a few thousand years old at most) at about 450 light-years from the Sun. And this binary exhibited some unexpected properties.

Streaming off this stellar couple is a long filament of luminous gas extending nearly 200 billion kilometres and ending at a bright, point-like object. Together they look like a sort of cosmic exclamation mark which perfectly illustrates the American team's puzzlement, though they searched for an explanation. It was suggested that the luminous point was a giant planet of 2–3 jovian masses, which, victim of the gravitational interactions between the two stars being born, could have simply been catapulted out of the system. The light trail could be matter from the protoplanetary disc trailed by the planet.