When gas and dust cloud breaks down and forms a star. A disk is formed around it, which subsequently becomes comets and asteroids and, finally, planets. During these steps, some of the elements contained in this initial cloud, including water, may be transferred. However, so far there has been missing link in history. It was known how water passes from a gas and dust cloud into a star and from comets and asteroids into planets. But it remained to be seen how it passes from newly formed stars to comets. This applies to our solar system as well as to every other planetary system. Now, thanks to a study recently published in Nature, we finally have an answer.
This has been achieved by an international team of scientists working with SOULA radio telescope installed in Chile. Through their research, they were able to find water in the disk of a star-forming planet called V883 Orionis. It is a young star located approximately 1300 light years from Earthwhich has some characteristics that made it necessary to find this missing link.
Using the right tools and finding the perfect star has given us some very useful information about this. the missing link of planetary water. But let’s see how they got to it.
Light and heavy water, the keys to follow it through the solar system
Typically, this type of study measures the proportions of two types of water. On the one hand, we have the most abundant, with the formula that we usually study at school. That is, one whose molecule consists of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms (H₂O). However, there are also slightly heavier water molecules in which one of the hydrogen atoms is replaced by deuteriumwhich is a slightly heavier isotope of hydrogen.
ratio of both types of water can help us find out where the sample came from. For example, some comets and asteroids have been observed to have the same proportion as Earth’s water, which seems to indicate that they dumped water on our planet.
But how did this water from the planet-forming disk get to the planets? This is the missing link that scientists have been looking for for so long. And now they may have found it.
Why was it so difficult to find the missing link?
Finding water in space with ground-based radio telescopes like ALMA is not easy. This can be done if you in gaseous statesince the radiation emitted by the particles is measured as they spin and vibrate. However, in planetary formation disks, water is often in the form of icebecause its temperature is very low. Therefore, since in the solid state the particles they barely vibrate, this technique could not be used. Yes, may be some gas in the center of the disc, where it is hottest, but these nearby areas are obscured by the dust disk itself. In addition, they are too small to be photographed. modern telescopes. All this has so far prevented us from finding the missing link in planetary water.
But the V883 Orionis has an edge to help solve these problems. And this is what, according to previous research, the flare of a star heated up his planetary disk enough to hold water in a gaseous state outside of its center.
For this reason, they used ALMA to detect this radiation emitted by gaseous water. They were able to find it, as well as measure its composition, which helped to find the missing link in the distribution chain of planetary water. They even managed to measure the total amount of water and make sure that 1200 times more than in all the oceans of the Earth.
At the moment, the authors of the study plan to continue the study of this planetary disk, this time using Extremely Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Thanks to the first generation infrared device METIS, they believe they can better track water from the birth of stars to the formation of entire planetary systems. We already have the missing link, it remains only to complete it in the chain.
Source: Hiper Textual
