If there were such a thing as a photo album of the universe, it might include snapshots of pancake-like disks of gas and dust, swirling around newly formed stars across the Milky Way. Known as planet-forming disks, they are believed to be a short-lived feature around most, if not all, young stars, providing the raw materials for planets to form.

Most of these planetary nurseries are short-lived, typically lasting only about 10 million years—a fleeting existence by cosmic standards. Now, in a surprising find, researchers at the University of Arizona have discovered that disks can grace their host stars much longer than previously thought, provided the stars are small—one-tenth of the sun’s mass or less.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Letters Journal, a research team led by Feng Long of the U of A Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, in the College of Science, reports a detailed observation of a protoplanetary disk at the ripe old age of 30 million years. Presenting the first detailed chemical analysis of a long-lived disk using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the paper provides new insights into planet formation and the habitability of planets outside our solar system.