James Webb Space Telescope discovers planets forming in space's most punishing environments.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have peered deep into one of the Milky Way's most radiation-intense star-forming regions, revealing that Earth-like planets can form even in the galaxy's most punishing environments.

The observations expand the range of environments where habitable worlds might form, the researchers say. Previously, astronomers thought these harsh conditions might not be conducive to the formation of planets. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation "was long thought to pose a serious threat to the formation of planets around nearby, smaller stars," Konstantin Getman, a research professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and co-author of a new paper describing the findings, told Space.com.

However, the results, published May 20 in The Astrophysical Journal, show that even under these harsh ultraviolet conditions, protoplanetary disks — swirling rings of gas and dust where planets are born — can still survive and evolve.

Source: www.space.com

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