Astronomers have detected benzene in a planet-forming disk around a young star for the first time. The team of international researchers, including Dutch scientists, also observed many other smaller carbon compounds and few oxygen-rich molecules. The observations suggest that rocky planets forming in the disk contain relatively little carbon, similar to Earth. The researchers studied the young, small star J160532, which is one-tenth of the mass of our sun and 500 light years away from us towards the constellation Scorpio. The team used data from the MIRI spectrometer aboard the James Webb Space Telescope to make their observations.
