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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has found evidence of violent collisions between Mars-sized protoplanets by studying 21 rare 'extreme debris disks' around young stars, offering a glimpse into the kinds of impacts that may have shaped our own solar system, including the collision thought to have formed the Moon. The research gives astronomers new tools to understand the frequency and scale of planetary collisions during solar system formation, informing broader models of how rocky planets and moons come to be.