NASA's James Webb telescope captures earliest stage of planet formation that we've never seen before
For the first time ever, scientists have captured the process of planets forming in their earliest stages.
The ground-breaking photos were captured by the ALMA telescope in Chile and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST); both discovering crucial information on the incredible formation.
HOPS-315 - a 'baby' star some 1,300 light-years away - was seen just as its first solid grains were beginning to form.
The JWST first detected the heat of the star's tiny, hot minerals - made of silicon monoxide (SiO) - which were starting to condense into solids.
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Meanwhile, ALMA pinpointed exactly where in a dusty disc around the young star these minerals were appearing - around the equivalent of our asteroid belt.
This observation gives us a real-time glimpse into what our own Solar System looked like over 4.5 billion years ago.
Previously, scientists had seen juvenile discs that contained 'newborn, massive, Jupiter-like planets,' - but nothing this early.
Melissa McClure, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the new study, said: "For the first time, we have identified the earliest moment when planet formation is initiated around a star other than our Sun."
Co-author Merel van ‘t Hoff, a professor at Purdue University in the US, said the findings were like 'a picture of the baby Solar System,' adding: “We're seeing a system that looks like what our Solar System looked like when it was just beginning to form.”
In the first mind-blowing photo, orange marks of carbon monoxide can be seen, sweeping out in a wide, butterfly-shaped flow.
Meanwhile, blue traces represent a silicon monoxide jet - both features typical for a young star.
Crucially, combining ALMA’s imaging with JWST’s data reveals a surrounding SiO-rich disc where that gas is just beginning to solidify into silicate grains - the very first step of planet formation.
A second, equally as fascinating photo from ALMA reveals two SiO jets streaming from HOPS-315; one blue-shifted toward us, the other red-shifted away. JWST's data picked up some SiO moving at around 10 km/s, but ALMA finds these jets racing at around 100 km/s instead.
This tells us that the slower-moving SiO is concentrated in a tight ring at roughly the asteroid-belt distance from the star; so narrow that ALMA can’t distinguish it as a separate feature in this image.
Moreover, the jets contain less 'gaseous' SiO than expected, indicating that some of it is already condensing into solid silicate grains in the disc.
Responding to the incredible photo over on Reddit's R/SpacePorn community, one enthusiast said: "I’m boggled by how the hell we are able to get images of something 1,300 light years away."
A second observed: "It looks like a living entity being formed. Our natural universe is so beautiful."
While someone else switched perspectives, adding: "Imagine a far far distant life form has some sort of telescope or 'looking glass technology' and sees our planet being formed or even our sun..."
These findings will help scientists learn even more about how our own Solar System came to be - maybe one day providing answers to previously impossible questions.
Ellie Kemp