Forming Planets Without Heavy Elements?

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Video imagery:

·       Animation of molecular cloud with multiple protoplanetary disks: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, the Advanced Visualization Laboratoy at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, A. Boley, A. Kritsuk and M. Norman

·       Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud: NASA, ESA

·       Webb Space Telescope image of NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud: NASA, ESA, CSA

·       Animation of protoplanetary disk: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, the Advanced Visualization Laboratoy at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, A. Boley, A. Kritsuk and M. Norman

Music from Music for Non-Profits

 

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A collage of colorful nebulae, galaxies, stars, and planets. 

 

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Text: News from the Universe. 

 

December 20, 2024. Forming Planets without Heavy Elements? Animation. A swirl of brown, red, blue, and purple gases and dust clouds spins in outer space. Text: Howe early in the universe could planets form? The center of the dust cloud intensifies and becomes dark red. Text: The Hubble and James Webb space telescopes are changing astronomers' thinking about planet formation in environments without many heavy elements, like the early universe. 

 

In a recent study, the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy served as a stand-in for the early universe environment, because it similarly lacks many heavy elements. A field of bright yellow, orange, and white stars of different intensities glows amid blue and purple gasses against the darkness of space. Text: Hubble Space Telescope. Webb supported Hubble's findings that circumstellar disks without many heavy elements can survive 10 times longer than estimated. The image turns into a red and purple view, and five stars in a dense cloud on the lower left are circled. Text: Webb Space Telescope. 

 

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Animation. A spiral of red and orange dust and gas clouds spins rapidly about a blue and white center. Text: Instead of being quickly blasted away by their stars, it's possible disks in these heavy element-poor environments are bigger and last longer, giving planets more time to form. The spiral thickens and turns yellow in the middle. It coalesces around the center and grows. Text: This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD.