Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers obtained high-contrast coronagraphic images of the protoplanetary disk around the young, nearby star TW Hydrae. Results of the observational campaign, published July 27 on the preprint server arXiv, shed more light on the nature of this disk.
The nearest protoplanetary disk
Located some 194 light-years (1.1 quadrillion miles) from Earth in the constellation Hydra, TW Hydrae (TW Hya for short) is a T Tauri star about 8 million years old, with a mass of approximately 0.87 solar masses. The star is assumed to be orbited by an ice giant planet at a distance of some 22 AU.
TW Hydrae is known to host a gas-rich protoplanetary disk with a mass of more than 0.006 solar masses that has been the target of numerous studies. This nearest protoplanetary disk to Earth shows prominent rings and gaps in gas and dust emissions, indicative of ongoing planet formation.
Investigating disks like the one around TW Hydrae could provide essential information about planetary formation processes. Such studies could be crucial for astronomers seeking to determine whether and what organic molecules are synthesized in protoplanetary disks, as the chemical composition of these structures might shape the properties of the emerging planetary system.
Piercing through the disk with NIRCam
That is why a team of astronomers led by Yu-Chia Lin of the University of Arizona pointed JWST’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) at TW Hydrae. NIRCam allowed the researchers to probe scattered light from the disk’s surface with improved clarity, search for faint companions close to the star and resolve fine-scale structures that were previously difficult to distinguish.
The observations found that the disk of TW Hydrae has an average inclination of 8.74 degrees and a position angle of 75.62 degrees. However, radial variations in these parameters were identified, which suggests a warped disk architecture.
Furthermore, the disk surface was brighter than in previous observations. A disk-to-star flux ratio of 2.44% was measured, significantly higher than previous measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope. The scattered-light color was found to be predominantly blue across most of the disk, indicating that the scattering surface is dominated by micron- to submicron-sized dust grains.
The astronomers resolved a previously detected feature in the outer disk of TW Hydrae, at a distance of 120 AU from the star. It turned out to be a distinct bifurcation structure, which may indicate the presence of complex substructures arising from dynamical planet-disk interactions.
Possible previously undetected companions
The authors of the study also searched for possible companion stars to TW Hydrae. However, the new observations rule out the presence of nonembedded companions with masses greater than 0.4 Jupiter masses beyond 60 AU from TW Hydrae and with masses greater than two Jupiter masses beyond 30 AU from the star.
“These limits suggest that the planets responsible for the observed gaps and spiral features are either sub-Jupiter-mass objects or are deeply embedded and obscured by circumstellar dust,” the researchers conclude.
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Publication details
Yu-Chia Lin et al, JWST/NIRCam Imaging of Young Stellar Objects. IV. Detailed Imaging of the Protoplanetary Disk around TW Hya, arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2607.23992
Journal information:
arXiv
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Webb reveals warped structure in nearby TW Hydrae’s protoplanetary disk (2026, August 2)
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