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Observing a star not too far away led to a discovery that sheds light on the path of water in the universe. It turns out that water in star systems was already present in protostellar disks, which means it was there even before stars were born.

A team of scientists from the US National Astronomical Observatory has made a series of observations of the still unfinished young star V883 Orionis, located 1,300 light-years away. This star is surrounded by a huge disk of material that will one day coalesce into planets orbiting it.

However, as the star continues to grow, pulling matter from the disk, the energy released during the accretion process makes the observations extremely valuable.

In this disc, scientists have unequivocally detected the presence of water vapor, swirling with the rest of the dust and gas destined to be part of an alien world.

This indicates that water in the solar system – including what is now on Earth – was present in the gaseous cradle from which the sun was born; That he was here, not just before the Earth, but before the Sun, and helped our planet grow.

“We can now trace the origins of water in our solar system back before the formation of the sun,” says astronomer John Tobin of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Water is fairly common throughout the universe, though Earth in particular wouldn’t be the “pale blue blob” without it. Moreover, it is an important component in the formation of planets. Stars are born from clouds of dust and gas in space. The dense mass collapses under the influence of gravity, and as it rotates, it begins to pull in more material from the surrounding cloud, forming a disk that feeds the young star.

Once the star has finished growing, the rest of the planetary system is formed from what is left of the disk. Dust grains stick together electrostatically, forming larger and larger clumps until the object becomes massive enough for gravity to take over.

It is believed that water plays an important role in this process; Beyond the point where water vapor freezes — called the snow line — it coats dust grains like ice, giving them more stickiness that helps particles stick together in the early stages of planetary growth.

At this distance, we can’t tell if there was water ice in the protodisk or what the ratio is between normal water and heavy water (with deuterium). We can only study the chemical composition of matter by spectral lines in its gaseous state.

“The composition of water in the disk is very similar to that of comets in our solar system. This confirms the idea that the water of planetary systems was formed billions of years ago, before the sun, in interstellar space,” says astronomer John Tobin of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the United States: “It was inherited by both comets and Earth in a relatively unaltered form.”

The star V883 Orionis is evaporating water ice well outside its region of permanent accumulation. In fact, scientists get a glimpse of the protostar’s disk in its original state, before star formation processes affected its material.

A study of the spectral lines of water in the disk of the protostar of V883 Orionis showed the same ratio of normal to heavy water as comets in our solar system. This means that future comets in the V883 Orionis system and comets in our system will receive and will receive the “cosmic primordial” water, which existed in interstellar space before the birth of a star or the Sun, in relation to us. .

Where did the water come from on Earth?

The main point of the work carried out is that there is strong evidence of water in the interstellar medium long before the birth of the Sun.

It could have reached Earth not only with comets and asteroids, but also with ice-like dust particles on their surfaces, which in particular improved adhesion and could have accelerated planet formation before the gravitational phenomenon.

is reading: They found new ice that could change the perception of water

Editing: Estefania Cardina