For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has witnessed a young star creating crystals in extreme heat and launching them to the cold edges of its planet-forming disk. This discovery can shed light on how comets form at the fringes of our solar system.
The star, called EC 53, is located about 1,300 light-years away from Earth and is encircled by a disk filled with gas and dust, where planets are being born. By using the Mid-Infrared Instrument on the James Webb telescope, astronomers discovered where these crystals are made and how they move outward.
Webb identified the inner disk as a region where minerals formed, similar to where Earth and other inner planets of our solar system originated. Strong winds from the star’s disk act like a cosmic highway, pushing the crystals into the cooler outer disk, the potential birthplace of comets, according to NASA.
“EC 53’s layered outflows may lift up these newly formed crystalline silicates and carry them outward,” said Jeong‑Eun Lee, lead author of a study about these findings. “Webb showed us the types of silicates near the star and where they are during a burst.”
The star undergoes bursts about every 18 months, quickly gathering material and ejecting some as jets and winds. These energetic phases last around 100 days and are when the star creates silicate crystals, which can only form in high-temperature environments. It then sends them outward, mixing into the material that icy comets are made of.
Astronomers have noticed crystalline silicates in comets and the disks of other stars for a while, but the link between their fiery creation and their colder resting spots was a mystery—until now. Webb’s detailed observations provide the first conclusive evidence of how these minerals are formed and transported.
“We’ve shown how the star generates and distributes these tiny particles, each much smaller than a grain of sand,” said Joel Green, co-author of the study.
This research highlights the dynamic nature of young planetary systems and how stars shape their environments. Understanding protoplanetary disks like EC 53 can give us fresh insights into the building blocks of planets and comets scattered throughout the cosmos.
The study was published on January 21 in the journal Nature. By examining stars and their material outputs, we can deepen our understanding of how our solar system—and others—have formed and evolved.
