Baby Moons in the Making? The Discovery of a Moon-Forming Disk

Podcast: SETI Live · SETI Institute

Opublikowano: 2025-12-16

On this episode of SETI Live, host Moiya McTier welcomes two leading researchers—Gabriele Cugno (University of Zürich) & Sierra L. Grant (Carnegie Institution for Science)—to dive into an extraordinary discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): a carbon-rich, moon-forming disk around the distant exoplanetary object CT Cha b, some 625 light-years away. What exactly is a "moon-forming disk"? Why is this discovery a game-changer for our understanding of how moons — and ultimately habitable environments around them — can form? Gabriele and Sierra walk us through spectroscopy, chemistry (including acetylene, benzene, and more), observational challenges, and the big philosophical questions...