Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2024

42 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2024 ASTRO PUBLISHING The XUE program targets a total of 15 disks in three areas of the Lobster Nebula (also known as NGC 6357), a large emission nebula roughly 5,500 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. The Lobster Nebula is one of the youngest and closest massive star-formation com- plexes, and is host to some of the most massive stars in our galaxy. Massive stars are hotter, and there- fore emit more ultraviolet (UV) radi- ation. This can disperse the gas, making the expected lifetime of the disk as short as a million years. Thanks to Webb, astronomers can now study the effect of UV radiation on the inner terrestrial-planet form- ing regions of protoplanetary disks around stars like our Sun. “Webb is the only telescope with the spatial resolution and sensitivity to study planet-forming disks in massive star-forming regions,” said team lead María Claudia Ramírez- Tannus of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. Astronomers aim to characterize the physical properties and chemical composition of the rocky-planet- by NASA/ESA/CSA Bethany Downer A n international team of as- tronomers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to provide the first observation of water and other molecules in the highly irradiated inner, rocky-planet- forming regions of a disk in one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy. These results suggest that the conditions for rocky planet formation can occur in a possible broader range of environments than previously thought. These are the first results from the eXtreme Ultraviolet Environments (XUE) James Webb Space Telescope program, which focuses on the char- acterization of planet-forming disks (vast, spinning clouds of gas, dust, and chunks of rock where planets form and evolve) in massive star- forming regions. These regions are likely representative of the environ- ment in which most planetary sys- tems formed. Understanding the impact of environment on planet formation is important for scientists to gain insights into the diversity of the different types of exoplanets. Rocky planets can form in extreme environments