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Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 5 Min Read Another First: NASA Webb Identifies Frozen Water in Young Star System
For the first time, researchers confirmed the presence of crystalline water ice in a dusty debris disk that orbits a Sun-like star, using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The full artist’s concept illustration and full caption is shown below. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Is frozen water scattered in systems around other stars? Astronomers have long expected it is, partially based on previous detections of its gaseous form, water vapor, and its presence in our own solar system.
Now there is definitive evidence: Researchers confirmed the presence of crystalline water ice in a dusty debris disk that orbits a Sun-like star 155 light-years away using detailed data known as spectra from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. (The term water ice specifies its makeup, since many other frozen molecules are also observed in space, such as carbon dioxide ice, or “dry ice.”) In 2008, data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope hinted at the possibility of frozen water in this system.
“Webb unambiguously detected not just water ice, but crystalline water ice, which is also found in locations like Saturn’s rings and icy bodies in our solar system’s Kuiper Belt,” said Chen Xie, the lead author of the new paper and an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
All the frozen water Webb detected is paired with fine dust particles throughout the disk — like itsy-bitsy “dirty snowballs.” The results published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Astronomers have been waiting for this definitive data for decades. “When I was a graduate student 25 years ago, my advisor told me there should be ice in debris disks, but prior to Webb, we didn’t have instruments sensitive enough to make these observations,” said Christine Chen, a co-author and associate astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “What’s most striking is that this data looks similar to the telescope’s other recent observations of Kuiper Belt objects in our own solar system.”
Water ice is a vital ingredient in disks around young stars — it heavily influences the formation of giant planets and may also be delivered by small bodies like comets and asteroids to fully formed rocky planets. Now that researchers have detected water ice with Webb, they have opened the door for all researchers to study how these processes play out in new ways in many other planetary systems.
Image: Debris Disk Around Star HD 181327 (Artist’s Concept)
For the first time, researchers confirmed the presence of crystalline water ice in a dusty debris disk that orbits a Sun-like star, using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. All the frozen water detected by Webb is paired with fine dust particles throughout the disk. The majority of the water ice observed is found where it’s coldest and farthest from the star. The closer to the star the researchers looked, the less water ice they found. NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Rocks, Dust, Ice Rushing Around
The star, cataloged HD 181327, is significantly younger than our Sun. It’s estimated to be 23 million years old, compared to the Sun’s more mature 4.6 billion years. The star is slightly more massive than the Sun, and it’s hotter, which led to the formation of a slightly larger system around it.
Webb’s observations confirm a significant gap between the star and its debris disk — a wide area that is free of dust. Farther out, its debris disk is similar to our solar system’s Kuiper Belt, where dwarf planets, comets, and other bits of ice and rock are found (and sometimes collide with one another). Billions of years ago, our Kuiper Belt was likely similar to this star’s debris disk.
“HD 181327 is a very active system,” Chen said. “There are regular, ongoing collisions in its debris disk. When those icy bodies collide, they release tiny particles of dusty water ice that are perfectly sized for Webb to detect.”
Frozen Water — Almost Everywhere
Water ice isn’t spread evenly throughout this system. The majority is found where it’s coldest and farthest from the star. “The outer area of the debris disk consists of over 20% water ice,” Xie said.
The closer in the researchers looked, the less water ice they found. Toward the middle of the debris disk, Webb detected about 8% water ice. Here, it’s likely that frozen water particles are produced slightly faster than they are destroyed. In the area of the debris disk closest to the star, Webb detected almost none. It’s likely that the star’s ultraviolet light vaporizes the closest specks of water ice. It’s also possible that rocks known as planetesimals have “locked up” frozen water in their interiors, which Webb can’t detect.
This team and many more researchers will continue to search for — and study — water ice in debris disks and actively forming planetary systems throughout our Milky Way galaxy. “The presence of water ice helps facilitate planet formation,” Xie said. “Icy materials may also ultimately be ‘delivered’ to terrestrial planets that may form over a couple hundred million years in systems like this.”
The researchers observed HD 181327 with Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), which is super-sensitive to extremely faint dust particles that can only be detected from space.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
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Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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NASA Study Reveals Venus Crust Surprise
This global view of the surface of Venus is centered at 180 degrees east longitude. Magellan synthetic aperture radar mosaics from the first cycle of Magellan mapping are mapped onto a computer-simulated globe to create this image. Data gaps are filled with Pioneer Venus Orbiter data, or a constant mid-range value. Simulated color is used to enhance small-scale structure. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Soviet Venera 13 and 14 spacecraft. NASA/JPL-Caltech New details about the crust on Venus include some surprises about the geology of Earth’s hotter twin, according to new NASA-funded research that describes movements of the planet’s crust.
Scientists expected the outermost layer of Venus’ crust would grow thicker and thicker over time given its apparent lack of forces that would drive the crust back into the planet’s interior. But the paper, published in Nature Communications, proposes a crust metamorphism process based on rock density and melting cycles.
Earth’s rocky crust is made up of massive plates that slowly move, forming folds and faults in a process known as plate tectonics. For example, when two plates collide, the lighter plate slides on top of the denser one, forcing it downward into the layer beneath it, the mantle. This process, known as subduction, helps control the thickness of Earth’s crust. The rocks making up the bottom plate experience changes caused by increasing temperature and pressure as it sinks deeper into the interior of the planet. Those changes are known as metamorphism, which is one cause of volcanic activity.
In contrast, Venus has a crust that is all one piece, with no evidence for subduction caused by plate tectonics like on Earth, explained Justin Filiberto, deputy chief of NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and a co-author on the paper. The paper used modeling to determine that its crust is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) thick on average and at most 40 miles (65 kilometers) thick.
“That is surprisingly thin, given conditions on the planet,” said Filiberto. “It turns out that, according to our models, as the crust grows thicker, the bottom of it becomes so dense that it either breaks off and becomes part of the mantle or gets hot enough to melt.” So, while Venus has no moving plates, its crust does experience metamorphism. This finding is an important step toward understanding geological processes and evolution of the planet.
“This breaking off or melting can put water and elements back into the planet’s interior and help drive volcanic activity,” added Filiberto. “This gives us a new model for how material returns to the interior of the planet and another way to make lava and spur volcanic eruptions. It resets the playing field for how the geology, crust, and atmosphere on Venus work together.”
The next step, he added, is to gather direct data about Venus’ crust to test and refine these models. Several upcoming missions, including NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) and VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) and, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency), Envision, aim to study the planet’s surface and atmosphere in greater detail. These efforts could help confirm whether processes like metamorphism and recycling are actively shaping the Venusian crust today—and reveal how such activity may be tied to volcanic and atmospheric evolution.
“We don’t actually know how much volcanic activity is on Venus,” Filiberto said. “We assume there is a lot, and research says there should be, but we’d need more data to know for sure.”
Melissa Gaskill
NASA Johnson Space Center
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Explore This Section Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read NASA’s Webb Lifts Veil on Common but Mysterious Type of Exoplanet
This artist’s concept shows what the hot sub-Neptune exoplanet TOI-421 b could look like. It is based on spectroscopic data gathered by Webb, as well as previous observations from other telescopes on the ground and in space. Credits:
Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dani Player (STScI) Though they don’t orbit around our Sun, sub-Neptunes are the most common type of exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, that have been observed in our galaxy. These small, gassy planets are shrouded in mystery…and often, a lot of haze. Now, by observing exoplanet TOI-421 b, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists understand sub-Neptunes in a way that was not possible prior to the telescope’s launch.
“I had been waiting my entire career for Webb so that we could meaningfully characterize the atmospheres of these smaller planets,” said principal investigator Eliza Kempton of the University of Maryland, College Park. “By studying their atmospheres, we’re getting a better understanding of how sub-Neptunes formed and evolved, and part of that is understanding why they don’t exist in our solar system.”
Image A: Artist’s Concept of TOI-421 b
This artist’s concept shows what the hot sub-Neptune exoplanet TOI-421 b could look like. It is based on spectroscopic data gathered by Webb, as well as previous observations from other telescopes on the ground and in space. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dani Player (STScI) Small, Cool, Shrouded in Haze
The existence of sub-Neptunes was unexpected before they were discovered by NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope in the last decade. Now, astronomers are trying to understand where these planets came from and why are they so common.
Before Webb, scientists had very little information on them. While sub-Neptunes are a few times larger than Earth, they are still much smaller than gas-giant planets and typically cooler than hot Jupiters, making them much more challenging to observe than their gas-giant counterparts.
A key finding prior to Webb was that most sub-Neptune atmospheres had flat or featureless transmission spectra. This means that when scientists observed the spectrum of the planet as it passed in front of its host star, instead of seeing spectral features – the chemical fingerprints that would reveal the composition of the atmosphere – they saw only a flat-line spectrum. Astronomers concluded from all of those flat-line spectra that at least certain sub-Neptunes were probably very highly obscured by either clouds or hazes.
Image B: Spectrum of TOI-421 b
A transmission spectrum captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals chemicals in the atmosphere of the hot sub-Neptune exoplanet TOI-421 b. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) A Different Kind of Sub-Neptune?
“Why did we observe this planet, TOI-421 b? It’s because we thought that maybe it wouldn’t have hazes,” said Kempton. “And the reason is that there were some previous data that implied that maybe planets over a certain temperature range were less enshrouded by haze or clouds than others.”
That temperature threshold is about 1,070 degrees Fahrenheit. Below that, scientists hypothesized that a complex set of photochemical reactions would occur between sunlight and methane gas, and that would trigger the haze. But hotter planets shouldn’t have methane and therefore perhaps shouldn’t have haze.
The temperature of TOI-421 b is about 1,340 degrees Fahrenheit, well above the presumed threshold. Without haze or clouds, researchers expected to see a clear atmosphere – and they did!
A Surprising Finding
“We saw spectral features that we attribute to various gases, and that allowed us to determine the composition of the atmosphere,” said the University of Maryland’s Brian Davenport, a third-year Ph.D. student who conducted the primary data analysis. “Whereas with many of the other sub-Neptunes that had been previously observed, we know their atmospheres are made of something, but they’re being blocked by haze.”
The team found water vapor in the planet’s atmosphere, as well as tentative signatures of carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. Then there are molecules they didn’t detect, such as methane and carbon dioxide. From the data, they can also infer that a large amount of hydrogen is in TOI-421 b’s atmosphere.
The lightweight hydrogen atmosphere was the big surprise to the researchers. “We had recently wrapped our mind around the idea that those first few sub-Neptunes observed by Webb had heavy-molecule atmospheres, so that had become our expectation, and then we found the opposite,” said Kempton. This suggests TOI-421 b may have formed and evolved differently from the cooler sub-Neptunes observed previously.
Is TOI-421 b Unique?
The hydrogen-dominated atmosphere is also interesting because it mimics the composition of TOI-421 b’s host star. “If you just took the same gas that made the host star, plopped it on top of a planet’s atmosphere, and put it at the much cooler temperature of this planet, you would get the same combination of gases. That process is more in line with the giant planets in our solar system, and it is different from other sub-Neptunes that have been observed with Webb so far,” said Kempton.
Aside from being hotter than other sub-Neptunes previously observed with Webb, TOI-421 b orbits a Sun-like star. Most of the other sub-Neptunes that have been observed so far orbit smaller, cooler stars called red dwarfs.
Is TOI-421b emblematic of hot sub-Neptunes orbiting Sun-like stars, or is it just that exoplanets are very diverse? To find out, the researchers would like to observe more hot sub-Neptunes to determine if this is a unique case or a broader trend. They hope to gain insights into the formation and evolution of these common exoplanets.
“We’ve unlocked a new way to look at these sub-Neptunes,” said Davenport. “These high-temperature planets are amenable to characterization. So by looking at sub-Neptunes of this temperature, we’re perhaps more likely to accelerate our ability to learn about these planets.”
The team’s findings appear on May 5 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
Downloads
Click any image to open a larger version.
View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Ann Jenkins – jenkins@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated May 04, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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Inside a laboratory in the Space Systems Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a payload implementation team member harvests ‘Outredgeous’ romaine lettuce growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat ground unit on Thursday, April 24, 2025. The harvest is part of the ground control work supporting Plant Habitat-07, which launched to the International Space Station aboard NASA’s SpaceX 31st commercial resupply services mission.
The experiment focuses on studying how optimal and suboptimal moisture conditions affect plant growth, nutrient content, and the plant microbiome in microgravity. Research like this continues NASA’s efforts to grow food that is not only safe but also nutritious for astronauts living and working in the harsh environment of space.
The ‘Outredgeous’ romaine lettuce variety was first grown aboard the space station in 2014, and Plant Habitat-07 builds on that legacy, using the station’s Advanced Plant Habitat to expand understanding of how plants adapt to spaceflight conditions. Findings from this work will support future long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, and could also lead to agricultural advances here on Earth.
Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
https://youtu.be/63uNNcCpxHI How are we made of star stuff?
Well, the important thing to understand about this question is that it’s not an analogy, it’s literally true.
The elements in our bodies, the elements that make up our bones, the trees we see outside, the other planets in the solar system, other stars in the galaxy. These were all part of stars that existed well before our Sun and Earth and solar system were even formed.
The universe existed for billions of years before we did. And all of these elements that you see on the periodic table, you see carbon and oxygen and silicon and iron, the common elements throughout the universe, were all put there by previous generations of stars that either blew off winds like the Sun blows off a solar wind, or exploded in supernova explosions and thrust their elements throughout the universe.
These are the same things that we can trace with modern telescopes, like the Hubble Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These are all elements that we can map out in the universe with these observatories and trace back to the same things that form us and the elemental abundances that we see in stars now are the same things that we see in the Earth’s crust, we see in asteroids. And so we know that these are the same elements that were once part of these stars.
So the question of, “How are we made of star stuff?”, in the words of Carl Sagan, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
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