Around young stars, in protoplanetary disks, planets are born. But invisible fires rage there too: worlds collide, and their rocks vaporize. The James Webb Space Telescope sees the smoke — scorching cosmic dust glowing in infrared light. By analyzing this light — spectroscopy and photometry — scientists found 21 disks with a pulse: fresh impacts burn brighter. In eight systems, the dust is rich in quartz from silicon and oxygen — the same found in Earth's asteroid craters.

These findings are dusty fingerprints of catastrophes like the one that created the Moon. By reading such trails, scientists predict where late heavy bombardment occurs in exoplanet systems. It's a key to the history of stellar evolution and star formation. William Herschel discovered infrared radiation, and Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz found the first exoplanets, laying the foundation for reading cosmic chronicles.