INBOX ASTRONOMY

Webb Follows Neon Signs Toward New Thinking on Planet Formation

Release date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Webb Follows Neon Signs Toward New Thinking on Planet Formation



The contrast between the James Webb Space Telescope’s observations and those of the Spitzer Space Telescope, just 15 years ago, indicate changing conditions around a Sun-like star.

In 2008 NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope found a protoplanetary disk unlike any other. The dusty disk of gas surrounding the young Sun-like star SZ Chamaeleontis (SZ Cha) was being pummeled by extreme ultraviolet radiation – something previously seen only in computer models, never in the real universe. Planets in this system would have more time to form than in a disk being evaporated by X-rays, which is the norm. However, when the James Webb Space Telescope followed up on SZ Cha, it found nothing out of the ordinary – no abundance of ultraviolet radiation. In a short space of cosmic time, conditions in SZ Cha’s disk had changed, leaving astronomers to untangle meaning from the mismatched data and its implications for the formation of other solar systems.



  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org



  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.
 
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach