NASA Webb Finds Young Sun-Like Star Forging, Spewing Common Crystals - UNIVERSE

Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why comets at the outskirts of our own solar system contain crystalline silicates, since crystals require intense heat to form and these “dirty snowballs” spend most of their time in the ultracold Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Now, looking outside our solar system, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has returned the first conclusive evidence that links how those conditions are possible. The telescope clearly showed for the first time that the hot, inner part of the disk of gas and dust surrounding a very young, actively forming star is where crystalline silicates are forged. Webb also revealed a strong outflow that is capable of carrying the crystals to the outer edges of this disk. Compared to our own fully formed, mostly dust-cleared solar system, the crystals would be forming approximately between the Sun and Earth.

Webb’s sensitive mid-infrared observations of the protostar, cataloged EC 53, also show that the powerful winds from the star’s disk are likely catapulting these crystals into distant locales, like the incredibly cold edge of its protoplanetary disk where comets may eventually form.

“EC 53’s layered outflows may lift up these newly formed crystalline silicates and transfer them outward, like they’re on a cosmic highway,” said Jeong-Eun Lee, the lead author of a new paper in Nature and a professor at Seoul National University in South Korea. “Webb not only showed us exactly which types of silicates are in the dust near the star, but also where they are both before and during a burst.”

Image: Protostar EC 53 in the Serpens Nebula (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s 2024 NIRCam image shows protostar EC 53 circled. Researchers using new data from Webb’s MIRI proved that crystalline silicates form in the hottest part of the disk of gas and dust surrounding the star — and may be shot to the system’s edges.

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (NASA-JPL), Joel Green (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

The team used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to collect two sets of highly detailed spectra to identify specific elements and molecules, and determine their structures. Next, they precisely mapped where everything is, both when EC 53 is “quiet” (but still gradually “nibbling” at its disk) and when it’s more active (what’s known as an outburst phase).

This star, which has been studied by this team and others for decades, is highly predictable. (Other young stars have erratic outbursts, or their outbursts last for hundreds of years.) About every 18 months, EC 53 begins a 100-day, bombastic burst phase, kicking up the pace and absolutely devouring nearby gas and dust, while ejecting some of its intake as powerful jets and outflows. These expulsions may fling some of the newly formed crystals into the outskirts of the star’s protoplanetary disk. 

“Even as a scientist, it is amazing to me that we can find specific silicates in space, including forsterite and enstatite near EC 53,” said Doug Johnstone, a co-author and a principal research officer at the National Research Council of Canada. “These are common minerals on Earth. The main ingredient of our planet is silicate.” For decades, research has also identified crystalline silicates not only on comets in our solar system, but also in distant protoplanetary disks around other, slightly older stars — but couldn’t pinpoint how they got there. With Webb’s new data, researchers now better understand how these conditions might be possible.

“It’s incredibly impressive that Webb can not only show us so much, but also where everything is,” said Joel Green, a co-author and an instrument scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. “Our research team mapped how the crystals move throughout the system. We’ve effectively shown how the star creates and distributes these superfine particles, which are each significantly smaller than a grain of sand.”

Webb’s MIRI data also clearly shows the star’s narrow, high-velocity jets of hot gas near its poles, and the slightly cooler and slower outflows that stem from the innermost and hottest area of the disk that feeds the star. The image above, which was taken by another Webb instrument, NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), shows one set of winds and scattered light from EC 53’s disk as a white semi-circle angled toward the right. Its winds also flow in the opposite direction, roughly behind the star, but in near-infrared light, this region appears dark. Its jets are too tiny to pick out.

Image: Silicate Crystallization and Movement Near Protostar EC 53 (Illustration)

This illustration represents half the disk of gas and dust surrounding the protostar EC 53. Stellar outbursts periodically form crystalline silicates, which are launched up and out to the edges of the system, where comets and other icy rocky bodies may eventually form.

Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)

Look ahead

EC 53 is still “wrapped” in dust and may be for another 100,000 years. Over millions of years, while a young star’s disk is heavily populated with teeny grains of dust and pebbles, an untold number of collisions will occur that may slowly build up a range of larger rocks, eventually leading to the formation of terrestrial and gas giant planets. As the disk settles, both the star itself and any rocky planets will finish forming, the dust will largely clear (no longer obscuring the view), and a Sun-like star will remain at the center of a cleared planetary system, with crystalline silicates “littered” throughout.

EC 53 is part of the Serpens Nebula, which lies 1,300 light-years from Earth and is brimming with actively forming stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

To learn more about Webb, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/webb  

Source: NASA Webb Finds Young Sun-Like Star Forging, Spewing Common Crystals - NASA Science

Engineered micro scaffolds show promise for helping people recover from severe muscle loss - medicalxpress

Myoblasts attaching to the MEW scaffolds. Blue shows the muscle cell nucleus (DAPI), and pink shows the filaments of the muscle cells (F-actin). Here, you can see the grid design of the scaffold that the cells grow along. Credit: Hettiaratchi Lab

When a car accident or athletic injury destroys more than 20% of a muscle's mass, the body faces a problem it often can't heal fully on its own. Without intervention, scar tissue fills the injury site and can leave patients with permanent weakness and limited mobility.

Now, researchers at the University of Oregon's Knight Campus, led by Alycia Galindo, a Ph.D. candidate in Marian Hettiaratchi's lab, are developing a potential solution: microscopic scaffolds that guide muscle cells to regenerate organized, functional tissue.

Their findings, published in Cellular and Molecular Bioegineering, and part of the 2025 Young Innovator collection, combine microstructures with biochemical cues, offering a blueprint for future medical technologies that could help damaged muscle heal faster and more effectively.

Coaxing muscle to regenerate isn't straightforward. Muscles are intricate structures built from thousands of precisely organized fiber bundles, composed of different proteins like actin and myosin, that must work together to contract and move.

Current approaches, like muscle transplants, often fail because they struggle to integrate into the structure of existing muscle, often resulting lots of scar tissue and in impaired function. 

Muscle cells on the MEW scaffolds. Blue shows the muscle cell nucleus (DAPI), while pink shows muscle cell striations (alpha-actinin). Credit: Hettiaratchi Lab

Bioengineering Ph.D. candidate Alycia Galindo, a student in Marian Hettiaratchi's lab, wanted to overcome this challenge by providing regenerating muscle cells with microscopic scaffolds they could follow as they regenerate. The idea is that these tiny scaffolds could provide a roadmap for these cells to follow as they regenerate and eventually form the complex structure of mature muscle, and hopefully, enable more functional recoveries.

Galindo first teamed up with Kelly O'Neill, another graduate student in the Knight Campus, who is supervised by Paul Dalton, an associate professor in bioengineering and the Bradshaw and Holzapfel Research Professor in Transformational Science and Mathematics. This initial partnership grew out of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, an effort that brings together researchers focused on understanding peak performance and advancing human health.

Dalton is the inventor of a technology called melt electrowriting (MEW), a micro 3D printing technique that enables the production of microscopic scaffolds with precise geometries. The technique works by melting biocompatible polymers and using electrical forces to draw them into tiny fibers—just micrometers wide—stacking them layer by layer into three-dimensional structures.

"What makes MEW special is the level of control we have," Dalton explains. "It's really cool to think about applying it with muscle cells in this way."

Hyaluronic acid (HA) modifications for hydrazone crosslinking. 100 kDa HA was either oxidized to form HA-Ox or modified with norbornene functional groups (HA-Nor). HA-Nor was then modified again with adipic acid dihydrazide functional groups to form HA-Nor-ADH. A thiol-ene click chemistry reaction was then performed with HA-Nor-ADH to form HA-Nor-ADH-RGD. Credit: Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s12195-025-00865-y

Galindo started by attempting to grow developing muscle cells, called myoblasts, on MEW structures, which look like tiny grids (see left picture). She tested different scaffold thicknesses, ranging from 10 to 30 micrometers (about 1/10th the width of a human hair), and found that the myoblasts grew best on the 20-micrometer structures. This size likely worked best because it closely matches the diameter of muscle cells. While some cells attached and grew on the MEW scaffolds, there was still room for improvement.

"We thought that combining MEW structural scaffolds with biochemical signals could be really powerful," says Marian Hettiaratchi, an associate professor of bioengineering and senior author on the paper. "Cells respond to both physical and chemical cues in their environment. Giving them the combination of physical and chemical cues could really help the muscle cells."

Galindo then coated the MEW scaffolds with hyaluronic acid—a molecule familiar from skincare products that also occurs naturally in the body—because it mimics the cellular microenvironment and helps cells adhere and grow. Compared to scaffolds with no hyaluronic acid coating, the team found that the hyaluronic acid increased the surface area available for cell attachment and resulted in more myoblasts growing on the scaffolds.

Finally, Galindo wanted to use another common approach from the Hettiaratchi lab: the use of cell instructive molecules. These are molecules that trigger different responses from cells, like directing them to grow or attach. Previous work in the Hettiaratchi lab has focused on delivering these molecules to optimize regeneration after injuries. Galindo added a molecule to promote cellular attachment, a peptide called RGD, to the scaffolds. When she added RGD to the hyaluronic acid coating, the myoblasts stuck to the scaffolds significantly better than the uncoated scaffold versions.

Coating of MEW scaffolds with HA. HA-coated scaffolds were fabricated in 8-chamber well plates by crosslinking 25 µL of either 2% w/v HA-Nor-ADH or HA-Nor-ADH-RGD and 25 µL of 2% w/v HA-Ox around MEW scaffolds for 30 min. Credit: Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s12195-025-00865-y

Not only did the myoblast cells stick to these RGD coated scaffolds better, they began to align into structures that mimic muscle organization, and also began to differentiate into mature muscle cells.

"The difference was really dramatic," Galindo recalls. "With RGD, the cells not only attached more readily, but they also wrapped around the fibers and began growing along them in an organized fashion. These cells were using the scaffold as a template for regeneration."

While this technology remains a long way from human use, it represents a significant step toward developing effective therapies for large muscle injuries. This approach, combining structural scaffolds with customizable biochemical signals, could potentially be adapted for different types of injuries or patient needs.

"We've shown proof of concept with one set of molecules and one scaffold design. Now we can start optimizing—testing different growth factors, different release patterns, and different architectural arrangements. There's a huge design space to explore" says Hettiaratchi.

The team envisions future versions of the technology that could be implanted during surgery or even injected as a gel that solidifies into a scaffold at the injury site. The scaffold would provide both structural support and time-released biochemical signals, gradually degrading as the muscle regenerates until only healthy, functional tissue remains.

"We're not there yet," Galindo cautions, "but we've demonstrated that you can engineer scaffolds at the microscale that muscle cells recognize and respond to. That's a critical first step toward building therapies that can truly restore function after severe muscle loss." 

Provided by University of Oregon 

by Rachel Bedford, University of Oregon

edited by Stephanie Baum, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

Source: Engineered micro scaffolds show promise for helping people recover from severe muscle loss