She watched a baby star flare — and caught planets in the act of being born

Seoul National University astronomer Lee Jeong-eun has won Korea’s October Science Award for the first direct observation of planetary building blocks forming and traveling while a young star erupts in growth. Using the James Webb Space Telescope on the protostar EC 53 plus data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, she captured crystalline silicates freshly forming during a stellar outburst — the raw material that may one day become planets. The findings were published in Nature in January.