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A huge body of Ocean water discovered floating in space In Orion Nebula@TheCosmosNews
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Earth's Life-Nourishing Water Came From Interstellar Space, Scientists Find
Earth’s water originated in interstellar space more than five billion years ago, making it more ancient than the Sun, reports a new study that reveals fascinating insights about the evolution of water in budding star systems. The finding will inform efforts to find other water-hosting habitable planets.
Astronomers captured an unprecedented glimpse of water vapor surrounding the baby star V883 Orionis, located some 1,300 light years from Earth, enabling them to measure the ratio of two key versions of water for the first time in a developing star system. The results revealed that the composition of water in the V883 Orionis system is very similar to water content in many bodies of our own solar system, a discovery that adds weight to the theory that much of Earth’s water is sourced from interstellar dust grains that existed before the birth of the Sun.
Liquid water is essential for life on Earth, which is why scientists hoping to find life elsewhere in the universe focus on the so-called “habitable zones” of other stars, where water could conceivably exist. But in order to assess whether habitable water worlds elsewhere in the galaxy, we need to understand how Earth came to host seas, rivers, and lakes that teem with life.
V883 Orionis offers an excellent laboratory for this question, because it is surrounded by a relatively warm expanse of gas and dust—known as a protoplanetary disk—from which comets, planets, and other celestial bodies may eventually emerge. In this natal phase of most star systems, water is mostly locked up in the form of ice on interstellar dust grains, but hot bursts from the young star have hinted at the possibility of observing water vapor sublimating from these grains.
To search for this vapor, a team led by John Tobin, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, observed V883 Orionis with the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes.
The researchers not only report “the direct detection of gas phase water” in the system, they were also able to measure, for the first time, the ratio of regular water (made from two hydrogens and an oxygen) and water that contains a heavier version of hydrogen, called deuterium, according to a study published on Wednesday in Nature.
Earth’s water originated in interstellar space more than five billion years ago, making it more ancient than the Sun, reports a new study that reveals fascinating insights about the evolution of water in budding star systems. The finding will inform efforts to find other water-hosting habitable planets.
Astronomers captured an unprecedented glimpse of water vapor surrounding the baby star V883 Orionis, located some 1,300 light years from Earth, enabling them to measure the ratio of two key versions of water for the first time in a developing star system. The results revealed that the composition of water in the V883 Orionis system is very similar to water content in many bodies of our own solar system, a discovery that adds weight to the theory that much of Earth’s water is sourced from interstellar dust grains that existed before the birth of the Sun.
Liquid water is essential for life on Earth, which is why scientists hoping to find life elsewhere in the universe focus on the so-called “habitable zones” of other stars, where water could conceivably exist. But in order to assess whether habitable water worlds elsewhere in the galaxy, we need to understand how Earth came to host seas, rivers, and lakes that teem with life.
V883 Orionis offers an excellent laboratory for this question, because it is surrounded by a relatively warm expanse of gas and dust—known as a protoplanetary disk—from which comets, planets, and other celestial bodies may eventually emerge. In this natal phase of most star systems, water is mostly locked up in the form of ice on interstellar dust grains, but hot bursts from the young star have hinted at the possibility of observing water vapor sublimating from these grains.
To search for this vapor, a team led by John Tobin, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, observed V883 Orionis with the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes.
The researchers not only report “the direct detection of gas phase water” in the system, they were also able to measure, for the first time, the ratio of regular water (made from two hydrogens and an oxygen) and water that contains a heavier version of hydrogen, called deuterium, according to a study published on Wednesday in Nature.
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