Posted on by Evan Gough

Webb Joins the Hunt for Protoplanets

This artist’s impression shows the formation of a gas giant planet embedded in the disk of dust and gas in the ring of dust around a young star. A University of Michigan study aimed the James Webb Space Telescope at a protoplanetary disk surrounding a protostar called SAO 206462, hoping to find a gas giant planet in the act of forming. Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada

We can’t understand what we can’t clearly see. That fact plagues scientists who study how planets form. Planet formation happens inside a thick, obscuring disk of gas and dust. But when it comes to seeing through that dust to where nascent planets begin to take shape, astronomers have a powerful new tool: the James Webb Space Telescope.

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