“James Webb Telescope Reveals Rich Chemistry of Planet-Forming Disks for the First Time”

For the first time since its launch, NASA’s largest and most powerful space observatory has taken a look at the chemistry in the dusty disks around distant young stars, giving astronomers a peek into the birthplaces of exoplanets.

The “chemically diverse” compounds Webb spotted include organic molecules such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, acetylene, and the first discoveries of benzene, as well as life-friendly water. The stars Webb studied are only a few million years old, which means that the chemicals detected by the telescope It will be inherited by the planets and their atmospheres that will be formed in these cosmic nurseries, astronomers say.

Thomas Henning, director of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, said in a statement that Webb’s data “allow us to determine physical conditions such as densities and temperatures across and within those planet-forming disks, directly where planets grow.”

and Henning is an author on two of three recent studies that highlight findings from data collected by the mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) aboard Webb, a hybrid instrument that zips over images in addition to collecting spectra of light from deep sky objects, absorbing Different particles light at different wavelengths, which astronomers can detect in the spectra as unique chemical signatures of the objects studied.