NASA said it was able to use the James Webb telescope around ancient stars that challenge theoretical models of how planets can form. Supports images has not yet been confirmed.

The new Webb high-detail images were taken of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy neighboring our home Milky Way. The Webb telescope focused specifically on a cluster called NGC 346, which NASA says is a good proxy for "similar conditions in the early, distant universe" and lacks the heavier elements traditionally associated with planet formation. Webb was able to capture a spectrum of light showing that protoplanetary disks are still hanging around these stars, contradicting previous expectations that they would blow away after a few million years.

"Hubble observations of NGC 346 since the mid-2000s have revealed many stars about 20 to 30 million years old that still have planet-forming disks," NASA writes. Without more detailed evidence, this idea was controversial. The Webb telescope was able to fill in these details, suggesting that the disks in our neighboring galaxies had a longer time to accumulate the dust and gas that formed the core of the new planet.

As for why these discs were able to stall in the first place, NASA says researchers have two possible theories. One is that the "radiation pressure" ejected from the stars in NGC 346 takes longer to break up the planet-forming disks. Another is that the larger gas clouds necessary to form a "Sun-like star" in an environment with fewer heavy elements naturally form larger disks and take longer to die out. Whichever theory is correct, the new images are great evidence that we still don't fully understand how planets form.