Astronomers are hunting for planets in the process of forming around infant stars using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The powerful space telescope quickly delivered the goods, albeit in an unexpected way.
These infant planets take shape in swirling clumps of gas and dust called protoplanetary disks, gathering more mass as they do so. Humanity has imaged many of these protoplanetary disks, but astronomers have only glimpsed the forming planets within them a few times to date.
