A distant stellar nursery holds a clutch of newborn Jupiter-sized worlds, the tiniest of which is surrounded by a dusty disk that might someday give rise to moons. The detailed discovery, made thanks to the unparalleled sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope, could provide new insights into star and planetary formation, researchers report in a study in press at The Astronomical Journal.
Stars arise from enormous clouds of gas and dust when pockets of material collapse under the influence of gravity. The same process can also create smaller nonstellar objects, such as giant planets and brown dwarfs, which lack the internal pressure to fuse hydrogen into helium in
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