Planets might be more common throughout the universe than previously thought, suggest results from the James Webb Space Telescope
The ingredients for planet formation have turned up in part of a nearby galaxy where it was thought planets might not emerge. The discovery, reported on April 24 in Nature Astronomy and made using NASA’s hugely powerful James Webb Space Telescope , suggests that planet formation may be more common throughout the Universe than previously thought.
Researchers looked at NGC 346, a highly active star-forming region in a galaxy near the Milky Way called the Small Magellanic Cloud . They chose this place because it has a very low concentration of metals — which astronomers define as any element heavier than hydrogen and helium. Dust, however, is also crucial to detecting planet formation. The dust released by a star when it’s born can collect into a disk that eventually turns into planets. It wasn’t known whether enough dust could survive for planets to form in NGC 346, because the low-metal conditions make such disks susceptible to fast evaporation by light.The researchers used filters on JWST’s camera to find combinations of infrared wavelengths that allowed them to identify stars at various stages of their lives.
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