Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected abundant water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide and acetylene in the inner few astronomical units (AU) of XUE 1, a highly irradiated protoplanetary disk in the Lobster Nebula. The findings imply that the inner regions of highly irradiated disks can retain similar physical and chemical conditions to disks in low-mass star-forming regions, thus broadening the range of environments with similar conditions for rocky planet formation to the most extreme star-forming regions in our Galaxy.
Protoplanetary disks are vast, spinning clouds of gas, dust, and chunks of rock where planets form and evolve.
These regions are representative of the environment in which most planetary systems formed.
Understanding the impact of environment on planet formation is important for scientists to gain insights into the diversity of the different types of exoplanets.
Protoplanetary disks are the targets of the eXtreme Ultraviolet Environments (XUE) James Webb Space Telescope program.
Thanks to Webb, astronomers can now study the effect of UV radiation on the inner rocky-planet forming regions of protoplanetary disks around stars like our Sun.
“Webb is the only telescope with the spatial resolution and sensitivity to study planet-forming disks in massive star-forming regions,” said Dr. María Claudia Ramírez-Tannus, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
Dr. Ramírez-Tannus and colleagues aimed to characterize the physical properties and chemical composition of the rocky-planet-forming regions of 15 protoplanetary disks in three areas of the Lobster Nebula using the Medium Resolution Spectrometer on Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
“We are examining 15 planet-forming disks around young solar-mass stars influenced by strong UV radiation emitted by numerous nearby massive stars,” said Pennsylvania State University’s Professor Konstantin Getman.
“This…
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