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How worlds are born: JWST reveals exotic chemistry of planetary nurseries

The telescope is delivering a cascade of insights about the ‘protoplanetary’ disks where planets take shape.
  1. Alexandra Witze
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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is aweing scientists and the public alike with its spectacular images of distant galaxies and its discoveries of dozens of new black holes. Yet JWST is also rewriting scientists’ understanding of objects on a slightly smaller, more relatable scale: how planets form from swirls of gas and dust around young stars. Such ‘protoplanetary’ disks are what the environs of the Sun would have been like 4.6 billion years ago, with planets coalescing from the whirling material around an infant star.

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Nature 621, 670 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02922-w

References

  1. Banzatti, A. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.03846 (2023).

  2. Van Dishoeck, E. F. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.11817 (2023).

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