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Study of Small Magellanic Cloud suggests Planets could have Formed during ‘Cosmic Noon’

Study of Small Magellanic Cloud suggests planets could have formed during 'cosmic noon'
NIRCam mosaics of NGC 346. Credit: Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-01945-7

An international team of space scientists has found evidence suggesting that planets could have formed during the so-called “cosmic noon.” In their study, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study a part of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) to learn more about planet development around young stars.

For many years, astronomers have been studying planet creation and the likelihood of the existence of planets similar to Earth. But it is still not clear how planets could have could come to exist in the early universe when most, if not all of the stars, were small...

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