It's the earliest stage of planet formation ever seen by scientists. The new planetary system is taking shape around HOPS-315, a baby star which is located 1,300 light years from Earth in the Orion Nebula. Experts say that the discovery could help better understand the beginnings of our own Solar System.

Astronomers first identified these minerals using the now-three-year-old James Webb Space Telescope. To see where exactly the signals were coming from, they studied the system with the ALAMA telescope, which is operated by the European Space Agency with international partners in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

The researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to probe the chemical make-up of material around the star, and found the first-ever traces of warm silicon monoxide (SiO) in such a disk. They also noticed that the silicate minerals they detected were rich in SiO, and that the midsection of the star’s disk was ultra-hot.