Astronomers have published another amazing image taken with the James Webb Telescope (JWST). It captures a protoplanetary disk surrounding a newborn star in the constellation Taurus.

The object captured by JWST is known as HH 30. It is 480 light-years away from Earth and is located in the dark nebula LDN 1551 which is part of the Taurus molecular cloud.
HH 30 is of particular interest to astronomers. It is considered to be a classic example of a protoplanetary disk, which is located edge-on with respect to the Earth. Disks observed from this angle provide a unique laboratory for studying the settling and drift of dust grains.
In addition to JWST, the Hubble telescope and the ALMA radio telescope complex also participated in the observations of HH 30. This provided a multi-wavelength view of the protoplanetary disk. Long-wavelength ALMA data allowed us to determine the location of millimeter-sized dust grains, which are located in a narrow region in the disk’s central plane. The creation of a narrow, dense layer of dust is an important step in the process of planet formation. In this region, dust grains stick together to form pebbles and eventually planets.

In turn, Webb’s infrared data showed the distribution of finer dust grains. The size of these grains is only one millionth of a meter — about the size of a bacterium. While large dust grains are concentrated in the densest parts of the disk, small grains are much more widely distributed.

The data obtained by the three observatories also gave astronomers a better look at the structure of the disk. The photo clearly shows a high-velocity jet of matter released by the protostar. It interacts with nearby clouds of gas and dust, leading to the formation of so-called Herbig-Haro objects. The narrow jet is surrounded by a wider cone-shaped structure. As for the protostar itself, it is hidden inside the dust disk, providing it with illumination.
We have previously described how complex organic molecules form in protoplanetary disks.
According to ESA