(ORDO NEWS) — The young star V883 Orionis heated up the surrounding cloud, turning the frozen particles into gas.
This made it possible to study the structure of the protoplanetary disk using a radio telescope and notice large amounts of water in it.
When a young star is born in the central region of a gas cloud, the remnants of its substance form a protoplanetary disk, from which planets, asteroids and comets may arise in the future.
Such a cloud is surrounded by V883 Orion, located 1300 light years from us.
A team of astronomers led by John Tobin used the ALMA array of radio telescopes to view the structure of a protoplanetary cloud of a distant star and found large masses of water in it.
Some water molecules include the heavy isotope of hydrogen, deuterium. They are formed under slightly different conditions than usual, allowing you to determine the place of their origin.
In particular, the content of heavy water in some comets of the solar system is identical to its amount on Earth.
This is considered one of the arguments in favor of the hypothesis that most of the water was brought to our planet by comets. The same was indicated by the work carried out by Tobin and his co-authors.
Astronomers were helped by the unusually high temperature of the protoplanetary disk of V883 Orion. Not so long ago, a young star flared violently, heating the cloud around it.
As a result, water and other compounds here passed from the usual frozen form to the gaseous phase.
This greatly facilitated the acquisition of spectra and made it possible to determine the distribution of ordinary and heavy water, carbon monoxide (CO), and dust.
Water in the disk of V883 Orion turned out to be exceptionally abundant – at least 1200 times more than on the entire Earth.
According to scientists, the new observations make it possible to close the chain of water movement from the interstellar medium to protoplanetary clouds and further to planets such as ours that appear in them.
However, while the question of the origin of moisture on Earth remains completely unresolved.
Some data show that it could be formed as a result of geological processes on the planet itself, and at the same time as oil.
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