NASA’s Webb telescope seemingly confirms controversial theory on planet formation
SalonBack when the stars in our universe were initially being formed, they created rotating disks of dust and gas known as protoplanetary disks. Yet recent images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope seem to contradict that notion by showing protoplanetary disks in a dwarf galaxy adjacent to our own Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud. Focusing on a cluster known as NGC 346, which contained conditions analogous to those of the early universe, NASA analyzed spectra of light and learned that these stars still have protoplanetary disks. Although this debunks the previous assumptions about protoplanetary disks, it also confirms earlier images from the mid-2000s from NASA’s Hubble Telescope. “This was intriguing, but without a way to obtain spectra of those stars, we could not really establish whether we were witnessing genuine accretion and the presence of disks, or just some artificial effects.” Researchers have two hypotheses as to why these protoplanetary disks persist.
History of this topic
James Webb Telescope confirms what Hubble revealed about the birth of planets
India Today
Galway lecturer part of space research to shed new light on formation of planets
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In a first, a newborn star's spinning disk is seen in another galaxy
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Astrophysicists spill interesting facts on how disk galaxies evolve so smoothly
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