Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb Finds Early-Universe Analog's Unexpected Talent for Making Dust

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA Webb Finds Early-Universe Analog's Unexpected Talent for Making Dust

Release date: Tuesday, January 6, 2026 12:15:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Planet-building material found even in environments lacking the needed ingredients

The early universe may have been poor in heavy elements, but it was rich in creativity. In environments that lacked many of the ingredients astronomers associate with dust and planets today, new research is showing stars still found ways to build solid material.

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found unexpected types of dust in the nearby dwarf galaxy Sextans A, showing that stars were able to assemble solid grains from limited ingredients and offering a new window into how the first dusty galaxies took shape.

Full details are available on NASA.gov.

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