Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope detected water and carbon dioxide ice in the debris disk around Beta Pictoris, a star about 20 million years old and 64 light-years from Earth, Ars Technica reported, citing a Science study led by Sarah Betti of the Space Telescope Science Institute¹.

The team observed the system on Dec. 7, 2023, with Webb's Near Infrared Spectrograph, recording spectra from 0.6 to 5.2 micrometers after subtracting the star's glare, according to Ars Technica¹.

Spectra extracted from two spots about 100 astronomical units on opposite sides of the star showed water ice near 3 micrometers and carbon dioxide ice at 4.27 micrometers, plus a rarer carbon-13 form at 4.39 micrometers, the report said¹.

The carbon dioxide features were shifted and broader than laboratory spectra of pure CO2 ice, which the team interpreted as CO2 trapped inside water ice rather than separate grains, Ars Technica said¹. Mixed, or dirty, ice is expected to last longer under the star's ultraviolet light than pure ice grains, according to models cited in the coverage¹.

The ice mix is about 11 percent carbon dioxide, slightly more than one CO2 molecule per 10 water molecules, within ranges reported for Solar System comets and ices in other young disks, Ars Technica said¹. The water ice is almost entirely amorphous, with the team estimating less than 7 percent crystalline¹.

That glassy form, which requires remaining colder than about 100 Kelvin unless radiation continually disorders it, led the researchers to conclude the ice most likely formed in the interstellar medium before Beta Pictoris's planets began to take shape, the article said¹. Models had predicted debris-disk ice would be mostly crystalline¹.

The ice signatures were described as strikingly uniform across the disk¹. The team argued frequent collisions among planetesimals release fresh icy dust, including ice once buried inside bodies, replenishing grains destroyed by starlight¹. Earlier work had not found water vapor or a 3-micrometer ice absorption, Ars Technica said¹.

Beta Pictoris's edge-on debris disk was first imaged in 1984; three planets have been found, and carbon monoxide gas in the outer disk would be destroyed in 50 to 300 years unless replenished, the report said¹. The new ice detection supports the idea that colliding icy bodies feed that gas¹.

The team could not pin down the exact crystalline fraction or rule out other molecules in the mix, Ars Technica reported¹. The paper is listed as Science, 2026, DOI 10.1126/science.adw7770¹.