NASA just captured the exact moment a star was born: HH 30, about 450–480 light-years away, is a young stellar system surrounded by an edge-on disc of gas and dust.

 

Webb aimed at a faint young-star system in Taurus and revealed a remarkable protoplanetary disc.

HH 30, about 450–480 light-years away, is a young stellar system surrounded by an edge-on disc of gas and dust. ESA describes HH 30 as a prototype of an edge-on disc, making it an exceptional laboratory for studying how material evolves around newborn stars.

The dark band across the middle is the dense, dusty disc, which is thick enough to hide the young star itself. Light from the star illuminates material above and below the disc, creating the glowing regions we can see.

Three powerful observatories—Webb, Hubble, and ALMA—have observed HH 30 at different wavelengths. Together, they revealed how different-sized dust grains are distributed throughout the disc.

ALMA detected millimetre-sized grains concentrated in a narrow layer along the disc’s central plane, while Webb revealed much smaller dust grains spread more widely. The observations show that larger grains migrate and settle toward this thin layer—an important stage in the process that can eventually lead to the formation of planets.

HH 30 isn't just a beautiful image. It offers astronomers a close look at the early stages of planet formation around a young star.

James Webb Space Telescope & Cosmological Discoveries

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