New images from NASA’s Webb telescope support previously controversial findings about how planets form

NASA says it has been able to use the James Webb telescope around ancient stars to challenge theoretical models of how planets can form. Supporting images that could not be verified until now.

Webb’s new, more detailed images were taken of the “Small Magellanic Cloud,” a small neighbor galaxy to our home, the Milky Way. The Webb telescope was specifically focused on a cluster called NGC 346, which NASA says is a good representative of “similar conditions in the early, distant universe,” and which lacks the heavy elements associated with planet formation. Webb was able to capture light spectra that suggest that the protoplanetary disks are still hanging on to those stars, contrary to the expectation that they would have blown away in a few million years.

“Hubble observations of NGC 346 from the mid-2000s revealed many stars about 20 to 30 million years old that appeared to still have planet-forming disks,” NASA wrote. Without more evidence, that theory was controversial. The Webb telescope was able to fill in those details, suggesting that the disks of neighboring galaxies have had a very long time to collect dust and gas to form the basis of a new planet.

As for why those disks were able to persist in the first place, NASA says researchers have two possible theories. One is that the “radiation pressure” ejected from the stars in NGC 346 takes too long to break up the planet-forming disks. Another is that the large gas cloud required to form a “sun-like star” in an environment with few naturally heavy elements can produce large disks that take a long time to disappear. Whichever theory proves correct, the new images are good evidence that we still don’t fully understand how planets form.