In a Distant Solar System, the JWST Sees the End of Planet Formation

This artist's illustration shows what gas leaving a planet-forming disk might look like around the T Tauri star T. Cha. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser CC BY

“Knowing when the gas disperses is important as it gives us a better idea of how much time gaseous planets have to consume the gas from their surroundings,” said lead author Bajaj. “With unprecedented glimpses into these disks surrounding young stars, the birthplaces of planets, JWST helps us uncover how planets form.”

T Cha is noteworthy for another reason beyond its young age. Its eroding circumstellar disk has a vast dust gap in it about 30 astronomical units wide. On the inside of the gap is a narrow ring of material close to the star, and on the outside of the gap is the remainder of the disk material. A planetary candidate is in the gap but isn’t part of this research.

This figure from the research shows some of the JWST’s observations. The upper panel is the JWST MIRI MRS spectrum of T Cha plotted between showing PAH features and other data, including the forbidden noble gas emissions in green. The lower four panels further highlight the four forbidden line emissions, , , , and , which are especially important in this study. The presence of doubly ionized Argon has never been observed before. Image Credit: Bajaj et al. 2024.

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