{"id":209419,"date":"2025-03-21T11:11:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/webb-reveals-planet-forming-disks-can-last-longer-than-previously-thought"},"modified":"2025-03-21T11:11:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T16:11:51","slug":"webb-reveals-planet-forming-disks-can-last-longer-than-previously-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/webb-reveals-planet-forming-disks-can-last-longer-than-previously-thought","title":{"rendered":"Webb reveals planet-forming disks can last longer than previously thought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/webb-reveals-planet-forming-disks-can-last-longer-than-previously-thought2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Most of these planetary nurseries are short-lived, typically lasting only about 10 million years\u2014a 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\u2014one-tenth of the sun\u2019s mass or less.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope, the paper provides new insights into planet formation and the habitability of planets outside our solar system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}