Potential Exo-moon Disk
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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:
- Artist’s concept of exoplanet CT Cha b: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
- Artist’s concept of planetary system: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser) and ESO
- Time lapse of Saturn with moons: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC) and the OPAL Team, and J. DePasquale (STScI)
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[00:00:00.00] A montage of celestial images taken through space telescopes. Text: News from the Universe.
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[00:00:00.18] [COSMIC MUSIC]
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[00:00:11.72] Text: November 24, 2025. Potential Exo-Moon Disk. An artist's conceptual drawing shows a disk of debris around a distant planet.
[00:00:21.14] Text: The James Webb Space Telescope is allowing scientists to study the chemistry of potential moon-forming disks around exoplanets for the first time.
[00:00:31.96] Webb shows that the large gas-giant exoplanet named C T Cha B is surrounded by a carbon-rich disk.
[00:00:41.93] No exo-moons have been detected so far, but scientists have identified seven carbon-bearing molecules in the disk from which moons could eventually form.
[00:00:52.55] The planet's star, CT Cha, is only 2 million years old. Compared to our Sun's 4.6 billion years, CT Cha is a very young and still-forming system.
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[00:01:03.20] A time lapse from the Hubble Space Telescope shows Saturn and its moons on June 6, 2018. Text: Webb's study of young planetary systems can give us insight into how the planets and moons in our own solar system first formed.
[00:01:16.20] This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.