In a new study, conducted by an international team of astronomers, a disk of gas around a low-mass star has been observed using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The star is known as ISO-Chal-147 and is located roughly 600 light-years away from the Earth. It is a young star at an age of 1 to 2 million years with a mass of 11% of our Sun. Young stars generally have a disk of gas around them. These types of objects are referred to as protoplanetary disks. As time goes on, planets start to form when gas pile up onto smaller objects in the disk, causing them to accrete mass and become bigger. In this way, a stellar system can form around the star. This process is what happened in the early age of our own solar system.

Image: Artist’s impression of a protoplanetary disk. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech.

By studying the disk of gas around ISO-Chal-147 using the JWST, the team of astronomers found a never before seen amount of hydrocarbon molecules in a protoplanetary disk. Hydrocarbon molecules are molecules that contain carbon atoms. Protoplanetary disks that contain a lot of hydrocarbon molecules may give birth to planets that are poor in carbon, as the carbon molecules are left in the disk instead of it being captured by the planets when they form. This is similar to the Earth that is a carbon-poor planet.

Disks around stars that are similar to the Sun tend to be poor in carbon and rich in oxygen-containing molecules such as water and carbon dioxide, making the protoplanetary disk observed in this study unique.

It's incredible that we can detect molecules that we are well acquainted with on Earth in an object that is more than 600 light-years away,

says Göran Östlin from Stockholm University, who participated in the study.

It is difficult to study protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars as they are smaller and less bright than disks around stars with higher mass. However, the team now aims to study more of these types of disks to further develop the understanding of how planets are formed in them. This can contribute to the understanding of how Earth-type planets are formed round stars different from our own.

This work also shows how important it is that scientists from different disciplines collaborate. The results of this study, and similar studies in the future, can contribute towards other fields than astronomy such as chemistry and theoretical physics.

The study and its results have been published in the journal Science and can be found here.