Back when the stars in our universe were initially being formed, they created rotating disks of dust and gas known as protoplanetary disks. These protoplanetary disks slowly congealed into planets — so slowly, in fact, that astronomers speculated all of the protoplanetary disks that once existed have since blown away.
Yet recent images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope seem to contradict that notion by showing protoplanetary disks in a dwarf galaxy adjacent to our own Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud. Focusing on a cluster known as NGC 346, which contained conditions analogous to those of the early universe, NASA analyzed spectra of light and learned that these stars still have protoplanetary disks.
