As well peering back at the earliest galaxies in the universe, the JamesWebbSpaceTelescope is also letting astronomers learn more about how planets form.
As well as helping us learn about the earliest galaxies in the universe and taking stunning images of parts of our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope is also letting astronomers learn more about how planets form. Although we know that planets form from disks of dust and gas around stars called protoplanetary disks, there’s still a lot we don’t know about this process, particularly about how forming planets affect the rest of the system around them.
Webb was used to study to study the Fomalhaut star, located in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, which is forming planets in a manner that is similar to what happened in our solar system around 4 billion years ago. The forming planets themselves aren’t visible, but the researchers could infer their presence based on the gaps in the dusty disk. They saw three concentric disks stretching a total of 14 billion miles from the star.
Related Videos Astronomers had previously looked at this system with Hubble, but had only been able to see the outer ring, but with Webb’s more powerful infrared instruments, it was able to see the warm glow of the dust from the interior rings as well. That supports the idea that there are planets there, even if they can’t be seen yet.
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