JWST uncovers a rich diversity of carbon-bearing gases serving as ingredients for planets around very low-mass stars

Los discos de formación de planetas de estrellas pequeñas son facto- rías de compuestos de carbono

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers, including CAB (Centro de Astrobiología INTA-CSIC) scientists, studied the properties of a planet-forming disk around a young and very low-mass star. The results reveal the richest hydrocarbon composition seen to date in a protoplanetary disk, including the first extrasolar detection of ethane and a relatively low abundance of oxygen-bearing species. By including previous similar detections, this finding confirms a trend of disks around very low-mass stars to be chemically distinct from those around more massive stars like the Sun, influencing the atmospheres of planets forming there.
 

 

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