NASA Webb Finds Young Sun-Like Star Forging, Spewing Common Crystals

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-finds-young-sun-like-star-forging-spewing-common-crystals/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nn20260103 Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why comets at the outskirts of our solar system contain crystalline silicates—materials that require intense heat to form—even though these “dirty snowballs” spend most of their time in the ultracold Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Now, by looking outside our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope has returned the first conclusive evidence that links how those conditions are possible. The Webb telescope has revealed, for the first time, that crystalline silicates are forged in the hot inner region of the disk of gas and dust surrounding a very young, actively forming star. Webb also revealed a strong outflow that is capable of carrying the crystals to the disk’s far outer edges. In comparison to our fully formed, mostly dust-cleared solar system, the crystals would be forming roughly between the Sun and Earth.