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  1. NASA's Hubble Reveals Largest Found Chaotic Birthplace of Planets

    December 23, 2025Release ID: 2025-025 Missions: Hubble

    Vast dust and gas disk offers insight into the birth of star systems.

    Near the center is an object that resembles an edge-on view of a hamburger. There is a diagonal dark strip (the meat patty) of dust, running from 1 o'clock to 7 o'clock, that obscures a central star. Curving away from either side of the dark strip are glowing white clouds (the buns) where dust is reflecting starlight. Bright blue finger-like wisps of material extend far above and below the dark center plane. A few dozen stars, some with four diffraction spikes, are scattered on the black background of space.

  2. NASA's Hubble Sees Asteroids Colliding at Nearby Star for First Time

    December 18, 2025Release ID: 2025-008 Missions: Hubble

    The spectacular, resulting dust cloud mimics the appearance of a planet.

    Image labeled Fomalhaut system, Hubble Space Telescope. A grainy orange oval ring tilts slightly from upper right to lower left. At two o'clock, a white box outlines the ring's edge and white lines extend to a larger pullout at lower right. Two spots are labeled cs1 2013 and cs2 2023. Inside the ring is a black circle with a white star symbol in the middle.

  3. Another First: NASA Webb Identifies Frozen Water in Young Star System

    May 14, 2025Release ID: 2025-119 Missions: Webb

    Researchers found water ice throughout a dusty debris disk circling the Sun-like star HD 181327.

    An illustration of Sun-like star HD 181327 and its surrounding debris disk.

  4. NASA's Webb Finds Planet-Forming Disks Lived Longer in Early Universe

    December 16, 2024Release ID: 2024-135 Missions: Webb, Hubble

    New data confirms Hubble finding and refutes current theories of planet formation in universe’s early days.

    The center of the image contains arcs of orange and pink that form a boat-like shape. One end of these arcs points to the top right of the image, while the other end point toward the bottom left. Another plume of orange and pink expands from the center to the top left of the image. To the right of this plume is a large cluster of white stars. There are various other white stars and a few galaxies of different sizes spread throughout the image. Ten, small, yellow circles overlaid at various points across the image indicate the positions of the ten stars surveyed in this study.

  5. NASA's Hubble, Webb Probe Surprisingly Smooth Disk Around Vega

    November 01, 2024Release ID: 2024-030 Missions: Hubble, Webb, STScI

    Legendary Star Lacks Evidence for Large Planet Construction

    A two-panel image split down the middle vertically. At the left is the Vega disk as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The disk is perfectly circular, and at the center is a black spot blocking out the bright glow of a star. Closer to the center, the disk is white. Radial striations extend out from the center, giving a ripple effect to the disk like the end of a sausage casing. The outer edge of the circular disk is blue. At the right, the Webb image of the disk is an orange colored, smooth, fuzzy halo. The inner disk is whiter toward the center, and there is darker lane between the inner disk and the more orange outer disk. The disk is also perfectly circular, with a black circle in the center due to lack of data from saturation.

  6. Webb Finds Plethora of Carbon Molecules Around Young Star

    June 06, 2024Release ID: 2024-121 Missions: Webb

    Result provides new insights into the ingredients for planet formation around very low-mass stars.

    A yellow star is at the center, surrounded by a mottled disk of gas and dust that transitions from bright yellow to darker orange moving outward. There is a gap between the inner disk and the star, with two curving streams of gas connecting the star and the disk. The wide disk stretches from about 8 o’clock to 2 o’clock and is tilted so that the nearer side is toward the viewer. A label at lower left says “artist’s concept.”

  7. NASA's Webb Discovers Dusty 'Cat's Tail' in Beta Pictoris System

    January 10, 2024Release ID: 2024-101 Missions: Webb

    New observations in infrared light suggest recent massive collision.

    Star system Beta Pictoris.

  8. Webb Study Reveals Rocky Planets Can Form in Extreme Environments

    November 30, 2023Release ID: 2023-152 Missions: Webb

    Astronomers find a range of molecules that are among the building blocks for rocky planets.

    The image is dominated by a dusty disk extending from upper left to lower right and tilted toward the viewer. It resembles patchy clouds with small rocky bits scattered throughout. At 4 o’clock and 11 o’clock are two small, embedded planets. The outer edges of the disk are reddish, the middle orange, and the inner region yellow-white. At the center is a gap within which is a bright white star.

  9. Webb Follows Neon Signs Toward New Thinking on Planet Formation

    November 15, 2023Release ID: 2023-142 Missions: Webb

    The contrast between the James Webb Space Telescope’s observations and those of the Spitzer Space Telescope, just 15 years ago, indicate changing conditions around a Sun-like star.

    Illustration looking in from the outer edge of a disk surrounding an indistinct bright region. Rays of light emanate from the central area. A dark gap in the disk appears between the bright core and the dusty, hazy outer regions, which build up slightly as you move outward, so that the core appears sunken.

  10. NASA's Webb Findings Support Long-Proposed Process of Planet Formation

    November 08, 2023Release ID: 2023-144 Missions: Webb

    Drifting pebbles deliver water to the inner regions of planet-forming disks

    Artist’s concept of two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is a compact disk with no rings or gaps. On the right is an extended disk with rings and gaps.

  11. Webb Detects Water Vapor in Rocky Planet-forming Zone

    July 24, 2023Release ID: 2023-130 Missions: Webb

    The finding shows that a water reservoir is available for terrestrial planets that might be coalescing there.

    Left of center, a bright light source illuminates a surrounding disk colored dusky red. The disk is tilted from upper left to lower right, and has spiral features that are most prominent near the star. Small, rocky objects are scattered throughout the inner disk. At upper right, there is a gap through which background stars can be seen. At the outer edge of this gap is a dusky globe representing a gas giant planet. Beyond it, in the top right corner, is additional outer disk material, some of which is falling onto the planet.

  12. Webb Celebrates First Year of Science With Close-up on Birth of Sun-like Stars

    July 12, 2023Release ID: 2023-128 Missions: Webb

    NASA's James Webb Space Telescope continues to wow with an action-packed image belying a relatively quiet star-forming region. 

    Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud. The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top center of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.

  13. Webb Makes First Detection of Crucial Carbon Molecule

    June 26, 2023Release ID: 2023-129 Missions: Webb

    This molecule, never before seen in space, is believed to be a cornerstone of interstellar organic chemistry.

    An image made of three panels. The largest on the left shows the NIRCam image of a nebula with two bright stars. A skewed box in the top-right has a line leading to a second panel at upper right, with a MIRI image of that area. A tiny box in the center of that panel is blown up in a third panel at lower right, with a zoomed-in, combined MIRI and NIRCam image of a yellow and orange blob.

  14. Webb Looks for Fomalhaut's Asteroid Belt and Finds Much More

    May 08, 2023Release ID: 2023-109 Missions: Webb

    Nearby Planetary System Seen in Breathtaking Detail

    An orange oval extends from the 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock positions. It features a prominent outer ring, a darker gap, an intermediate ring, a narrower dark gap, and a bright inner disk. At the center is a ragged black spot where the detector is saturated.

  15. Hubble Follows Shadow Play Around Planet-Forming Disk

    May 04, 2023Release ID: 2023-011 Missions: Hubble

    Unseen Newborn Planets Are Stirring Up Dust Around a Young Star

    An artist's concept showing an oblique view of three concentric rings of dust and gas. At the center is a glowing sphere representing the central star. The reddish-colored rings are slightly inclined to each other due to the gravitational pull of unseen planets warping the disk structure. They are therefore casting dark shadows across the outermost ring at the 11 o'clock and 12 o'clock positions.

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