The MIRI Mid-Infrared Disk Survey , uses the James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI to study the chemistry and physical properties of disks around young stars to understand potential planet formation. Recent findings from a very low-mass star’s disk revealed a unique chemical composition rich in carbon-based molecules but deficient in oxygen-rich compounds, suggesting such environments could host Earth-like but chemically distinct rocky planets. Credit: SciTechDaily.
One striking example of an oxygen-rich disk is the one of PDS 70, where the MINDS program recently found large amounts of water vapor. Considering earlier observations, astronomers deduce that disks around very low-mass stars evolve differently than those around more massive stars such as the Sun, with potential implications for finding rocky planets with Earth-like characteristics there.
As a result, the observed disk contains the richest hydrocarbon chemistry seen to date in a protoplanetary disk, consisting of 13 carbon-bearing molecules up to benzene . They include the first extrasolar ethane detection, the largest fully-saturated hydrocarbon detected outside the Solar System. The team also successfully detected ethylene , propyne , and the methyl radical CH3 for the first time in a protoplanetary disk.
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