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NASA's Webb Telescope Studies Moon-Forming Disk Around Massive Planet

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September 29, 2025 10:00AM (EDT)Release ID: 2025-142
An illustration of a young planet with a surrounding disk of dust and gas potentially forming moons. The planet, which appears dark red, is shown at lower right, circled by a cloudy, clumpy reddish orange-colored disk. The host star appears at upper left, and glows yellow, with its own reddish disk of debris. The disk that surrounds the planet takes up about half the illustration. The black background of space is speckled with stars. At the bottom of the illustration, graphics of molecules are listed in the following order: diacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, propyne, acetylene, ethane, carbon dioxide, benzene. The words Artist’s Concept appear at upper right.

Summary

The disk offers insight into how the moons of solar system gas giants like Jupiter might have formed.

Our solar system contains eight major planets, and more than 400 known moons orbiting six of these planets. Where did they all come from? There are multiple formation mechanisms. The case for large moons, like the four Galilean satellites around Jupiter, is that they condensed out of a dust and gas disk encircling the planet when it formed. But that would have happened over 4 billion years ago, and there is scant forensic evidence today.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct view of material in a disk around a large exoplanet, which is located over 625 light-years away. This disk is a possible construction yard for moons. Moons likely outnumber planets in our galaxy, and some might be habitats for life as we know it. So, understanding formation scenarios for moons is critical.

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Full Article

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct measurements of the chemical and physical properties of a potential moon-forming disk encircling a large exoplanet. The carbon-rich disk surrounding the world called CT Cha b, which is located 625 light-years away from Earth, is a possible construction yard for moons, although no moons are detected in the Webb data. The results published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The young star the planet orbits is only 2 million years old and still accreting circumstellar material. However, the circumplanetary disk discovered ...

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News releases highlighting the discoveries of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are produced for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, under NASA Contract NAS5-03127. News release content is developed by the News Team in STScI’s Office of Public Outreach.

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