Astronomers have discovered a ‘missing link’ for water in the solar system

A team of astronomers has detected water in the form of gas into the planetary formation disk surrounding the star V883 Orionis, using the ALMA telescope, located in Chile.

This water carries a chemical signature that would explain water’s journey from star-forming gas clouds to planets, supporting the idea that Earth’s water is even older than our Sun.

“We can now trace the origins of water in our solar system to before the formation of the Sun,” he said. John J. Tobin, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (USA) and lead author of the study published this Wednesday in the journal Nature.

This discovery was made while studying the composition of the water present in V883 Orionis, a planetary-forming disc located about 1,300 light-years from Earth, reports the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in a note.

When a cloud of gas and dust collapses, it forms a star in its center; around the star, the cloudy material also forms a disc. Over a few million years, material from the disk clumps together to form comets, asteroids, and eventually planets.

Tobin and his team used the ALMA antenna array, of which ESO is a partner, to measure the chemical signatures of water and its journey between the star-forming cloud and the planets.

Generally, water consists of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. Tobin’s team studied a slightly heavier version of water where one of the hydrogen atoms is replaced by deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen.

Because simple water and heavy water form under different conditions, their report can be used to track when and where water formed.

Water travel from clouds to young stars and then from comets to planets has been observed before, but until now the connection between young stars and comets has been lacking.

“In this case, V883 Orionis represents the missing link“, summarizes Tobin, who explains that” the composition of the water in the disc is very similar to that of the comets of our own solar system”.

“It is a confirmation of the idea that water in planetary systems formed billions of years agobefore the Sun, in interstellar space, and was inherited by both comets and Earth with relatively little change.”

But watching the water proved tricky. Most of the water in planet-forming disks is frozen as ice, so it’s usually hidden, says co-author Margot Leemkerfrom the Leiden Observatory (Netherlands).

Water in the form of a gas can be detected by the radiation emitted by the molecules as they rotate and vibrate, but when the water is frozen it is more difficult because the movement of the molecules is more restricted.

Water in the form of gas is found towards the central zone of the disks, near the star, where the temperature is higher. However, these nearby regions are hidden by the dust disk itself and are too small to be captured by our telescopes.

Fortunately, a recent study revealed that the Orionis V883 drive is one abnormally high temperature.

An impressive emission of energy from the star heats the disc “to a temperature where the water is no longer in the form of ice, but in the form of gas, which allows us to detect it”, explains Tobin.

(With information from EFE)

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