Newborn stars are getting absolutely hammered by radiation much earlier and much harder than we ever thought possible.
April 6, 2026
Original Paper
Evidence of Enhanced Ionization in Protostellar Envelopes
arXiv · 2604.03010
The Takeaway
New observations show that the environments around newborn stars are highly ionized, which fundamentally changes how their chemistry works. This suggests that the building blocks of planets are being 'cooked' by radiation long before the planets themselves even start to form.
From the abstract
Ionization is a major driver of both physical and chemical evolution in protostellar systems. Recent observations reveal substantial chemical processing in protoplanetary disks by the time the surrounding envelope has cleared. Thus, physical conditions during the preceeding phase, when an infalling envelope of material is still present, are crucial for determining the extent of chemical processing at early stages. We used observations of H13CO+ and C18O from the Northern Extended Millimeter Arra