A far-ultraviolet-driven photoevaporation flow observed in a protoplanetary disk.

Most low-mass stars form in stellar clusters that also contain massive stars, which are sources of far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation. Theoretical models predict that this FUV radiation produces photodissociation regions (PDRs) on the surfaces of protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars, which affects planet formation within the disks. We report James Webb Space Telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter Array observations of a FUV-irradiated protoplanetary disk in the Orion Nebula.

Bipolar outflows out to 10 kpc for massive galaxies at redshift z ≈ 1.

Galactic outflows are believed to play a critical role in the evolution of galaxies by regulating their mass build-up and star formation. Theoretical models assume bipolar shapes for the outflows that extend well into the circumgalactic medium (CGM), up to tens of kiloparsecs (kpc) perpendicular to the galaxies. They have been directly observed in the local Universe in several individual galaxies, for example, around the Milky Way and M82 (refs.

Formation of the methyl cation by photochemistry in a protoplanetary disk.

Forty years ago, it was proposed that gas-phase organic chemistry in the interstellar medium can be initiated by the methyl cation CH (refs. ), but so far it has not been observed outside the Solar System. Alternative routes involving processes on grain surfaces have been invoked.