NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has turned up evidence that giant impacts between planetary bodies may be common around other stars, according to reporting by Tech Explorist. The findings suggest that collisions of the kind believed to have formed Earth's moon also occur in distant planetary systems.
Tech Explorist reports that the observations focus on extreme debris disks — rings of rocky material left behind after large bodies smash into one another. NASA published related research on the composition of these disks over time, as well as material describing Webb's broader look at planet-shattering collisions.
The News International also covered the findings, describing them as clues to moon-forming collisions around distant stars. Mashable reported that Webb spotted signs of impacts comparable to the one that produced our moon.
The leading explanation for the moon's origin is that a Mars-sized object struck the young Earth, throwing debris into orbit that later clumped together. If similar crashes are happening in other systems, the leftover dust and rock should be visible to a telescope sensitive enough to study it. Webb's infrared instruments allow researchers to examine the makeup of that debris, which is the focus of the NASA work on extreme debris disks.
The research does not confirm that moons have formed in any of these systems. It points instead to the collision stage that can precede moon formation, based on the reporting.
What to watch next: follow-up studies of these debris disks, which could show how long the dusty aftermath of such collisions persists and whether moon-building is a routine outcome of planet formation.
