JWST Reveals a Race Against Time for Forming Planets

JWST Reveals a Race Against Time for Forming Planets SETI Institute scientist Uma Gorti co-authors one of the largest JWST studies of how planet-forming disks lose their gas PRESS RELEASE DATE August 25, 2026 CONTACT Rebecca McDonald Director of... More

JWST Reveals a Race Against Time for Forming Planets SETI Institute scientist Uma Gorti co-authors one of the largest JWST studies of how planet-forming disks lose their gas PRESS RELEASE DATE August 25, 2026 CONTACT Rebecca McDonald Director of Communications, SETI Institute rmcdonald@seti.org ONLINE Press Release/Image https://tinyurl.com/22yvvydr A representation of a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust. The winds from the center represent gas being energetically expelled from a young planetary system. Credit: ESA/NASA, the AVO project and Paolo Padovani August 25, 2026, Mountain View, CA -- Planets form from disks of gas and dust around young stars, but the gas needed for growth does not last forever. New observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offer a new view of how this gas escapes and how the process changes as young planetary systems develop. The research, led by Naman Bajaj from the University of Arizona and co-authored by SET Less