Astronomers first identified these minerals using the now-three-year-old James Webb Space Telescope. To see where exactly the signals were coming from, they studied the system with the ALAMA telescope, which is operated by the European Space Agency with international partners in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

The astronomers observed hot minerals just beginning to solidify – the first specks of planet-forming material, the astronomers said. A gaseous disk surrounding the young star is the first stages of the assembly process to form a new planetary system, according to the paper.