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Refractory solid condensation detected in an embedded protoplanetary disk

Nature volume 643, pages 649–653 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Terrestrial planets and small bodies in our Solar System are theorized to have assembled from interstellar solids mixed with rocky solids that precipitated from a hot, cooling gas1,2. The first high-temperature minerals to recondense from this gaseous reservoir start the clock on planet formation3,4. However, the production mechanism of this initial hot gas and its importance to planet formation in other systems are unclear. Here we report the astronomical detection of this t = 0 moment, capturing the building blocks of a new planetary system beginning its assembly. The young protostar HOPS-315 is observed at infrared and millimetre wavelengths with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), revealing a reservoir of warm silicon monoxide gas and crystalline silicate minerals low in the atmosphere of a disk within 2.2 au of the star, physically isolated from the millimetre SiO jet. Comparison with condensation models with rapid grain growth and disk structure models suggests the formation of refractory solids analogous to those in our Solar System. Our results indicate that the environment in the inner disk region is influenced by sublimation of interstellar solids and subsequent refractory solid recondensation from this gas reservoir on timescales comparable with refractory condensation in our own Solar System.

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Fig. 1: Structure of HOPS-315’s inner disk.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: JWST spectrum of HOPS-315.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 3: JWST crystalline silicate and SiO vapour analysis.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 4: ALMA maps and spectra of HOPS-315.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Data availability

The original data are publicly available through the JWST MAST archive and ALMA archives. Our version of the 1D extracted spectra is on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15556630 (ref. 74).

Code availability

The solid-state fitting code ENIIGMA developed by W.R.M.R. is publicly available on GitHub: https://github.com/willastro/ENIIGMA-fitting-tool. The slab model used in this work is a private code developed by L.F. and collaborators, based on the private code developed by B. Tabone for emission line slab models. It is available from L.F. on request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is based in part on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with programme no. 1854. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADSJAO.ALMA#2023.A.00009.S. ALMA is a partnership of the ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan) and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, auI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. E.F.v.D., L.F. and W.R.M.R. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 101019751 MOLDISK), from the TOP-1 Dutch Research Council (NWO) grant 614.001.751 and from the Danish National Research Foundation through the Center of Excellence ‘InterCat’ (grant agreement no. DNRF150). E.B. acknowledges support from NASA XRP #80NSSC24K0149. E.D. and J.A.N. acknowledge support from the French Programme National ‘Physique et Chimie du Milieu Interstellaire’ (PCMI) of the CNRS/INSU with the INC/INP, co-funded by the CEA and the CNES. D.H. is supported by a Center for Informatics and Computation in Astronomy (CICA) grant and grant number 110J0353I9 from the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. D.H. also acknowledges support from the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan (grant nos. NSTC111-2112-M-007-014-MY3, NSTC113-2639-M-A49-002-ASP and NSTC113-2112-M-007-027).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    M. K. McClure, Logan Francis, Will R. M. Rocha, J. A. Sturm & Ewine F. van Dishoeck

  2. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Merel van’t Hoff & Edwin Bergin

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Merel van’t Hoff

  4. Laboratory for Astrophysics, Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Will R. M. Rocha

  5. Institute of Astronomy, Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Daniel Harsono

  6. Onsala Space Observatory, Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala, Sweden

    John H. Black

  7. Physique des Interactions Ioniques et Moléculaires, CNRS, Aix Marseille Université, Marseille, France

    J. A. Noble

  8. Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, USA

    D. Qasim

  9. Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France

    E. Dartois

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  1. M. K. McClure
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Contributions

M.K.M., M.v.t.H., E.B., D.H., E.F.v.D., J.A.N., D.Q. and E.D. contributed to the JWST proposal. M.v.t.H., E.B. and M.K.M. contributed to the ALMA proposal. M.K.M., J.A.S. and M.v.t.H. reduced the JWST NIRSpec/MIRI and ALMA data, respectively. M.K.M., M.v.t.H., E.B., L.F. and W.R.M.R. designed the analysis plan. L.F. and W.R.M.R. designed and executed the JWST gas and solids modelling, with ancillary analysis by M.K.M. and input from E.F.v.D. M.v.t.H. and E.B. designed and executed the ALMA analysis. J.H.B. provided reformatted molecular data for the SiO band. M.K.M. wrote most of the main text. M.v.t.H., L.F., W.R.M.R. and M.K.M. wrote parts of the Methods and Supplementary Methods sections. All authors participated in discussion of the observations, interpretation of the results and commented on the submitted draft.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. K. McClure.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Velocity fit to SiO band.

The offset of individual SiO ν = 1-0 lines (circles) from their rest-frame wavelength, as determined by a Gaussian fit, is shown between 7.9 and 8.5 μm. The mean velocity offset and mean plus or minus one standard deviation are shown by the dark blue and dashed horizontal lines, respectively. The barycentric reference frame is offset from LSRK by −17.3 km s−1.

Extended Data Fig. 2

ENIIGMA fit without silica over the whole wavelength range, M4(w).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Comparison of ENIIGMA fit with and without silica.

a, Model with silica (M5(s)) over the 7.75–13.20-μm range. b, Model without silica (M4(s)). Silica improves the fit in a statistically significant way from 8 to 9 μm and at 12.5 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Slab model fits to the H2O gas-phase absorption bands.

a, The 3-μm band. b,c, The 6–8-μm band. d, The 17-μm band.

Extended Data Fig. 5

Slab model fits to the C2H2 and HCN gas-phase absorption bands.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Slab model fits to the CO2 absorption bands.

a, The 4.27-μm band. b, The 15.3-μm band.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Slab model fits for the CO vapour.

a, The overtone ν = 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2 bands appear in emission and trace hot, dense gas above the temperature inversion layer. b, The CO fundamental ν = 1-0 band shows at least three absorption components, of which we fit two: hot 12CO and warm 13CO components that trace the inner edge of the thermostat region. The residuals of these fits indicate a missing cold 12CO component, with a more complex geometry than is appropriate for our model. c,d, Zoom-in on individual lines, to show the quality of the fit. e, The sum of all three modelled CO components compared with the observational data. Residuals owing to a cold component with a different covering fraction are discussed in Methods and Supplementary Fig. 11.

Extended Data Table 1 Results of infrared dust fitting
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Results of infrared molecular gas fitting
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figs. 1–12 and a Supplementary Reference.

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McClure, M.K., van’t Hoff, M., Francis, L. et al. Refractory solid condensation detected in an embedded protoplanetary disk. Nature 643, 649–653 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09163-z

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