HH 30: A Star System with Planets Now Forming
How do stars and planets form?
New clues have been found in the protoplanetary system
Herbig-Haro 30
by the
James Webb Space Telescope in concert with
Hubble and the Earth-bound
ALMA.
The
observations show, among other things, that large
dust grains are more
concentrated into a central disk where they can form planets.
The featured image from Webb shows many attributes of the active HH-30 system.
Jets of particles are being expelled vertically,
shown in red, while a dark
dust-rich disk is seen across the center,
blocking the light from the star or stars still forming there.
Blue-reflecting dust is seen in a
parabolic arc
above and below the central disk,
although why a tail appears on the lower left is currently unknown.
Studying how planets form in
HH 30
can help astronomers better understand how planets in our own
Solar System once formed, including
our Earth.