All articles tagged with #planetary disks
The James Webb Space Telescope has for the first time analyzed the composition of a moon-forming disk around the planetary body CT Cha b, revealing a rich presence of carbon-bearing molecules that are essential for moon formation, providing new insights into how moons in our solar system and beyond may develop.
Scientists studying data from the JWST have discovered that a planetary disk in the Orion Nebula, d203-506, is destroying and replenishing an amount of water equivalent to all of Earth’s oceans in about a month. This process sheds light on the water cycle in the infant Solar System and suggests that Earth's water likely went through a similar process before making its way to the planetesimals and icy bodies that helped form the worlds of the Solar System. The findings provide valuable insights into planet-formation processes and the interplay between young stars and their protoplanetary disks.
Astronomers have discovered an intact Jupiter-mass planet orbiting a white dwarf, raising questions about the existence of terrestrial, Earth-like planets around white dwarfs. While white dwarfs have habitable zones, they are much smaller than those around main sequence stars. The discovery of a massive gas giant around a white dwarf suggests that rocky planets may be rare in this population. However, the presence of rocky debris disks indicates the existence of small terrestrial planets. Further research is needed to determine the true population of planets around white dwarfs and their potential for habitability.