James Webb Telescope Discovers Water in PDS 70 System

 A recent research paper published in Nature reveals that the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has identified water vapor within a protoplanetary disk. This discovery was made in the PDS 70 planetary system, situated 370 light-years from Earth. This system features a star encircled by an inner and outer disk, separated by a gap of approximately eight billion kilometers, where two gas giant planets, PDS 70 b and PDS 70 c, reside. The detection has sparked further discussion among scientists about the origins of water on our planet and its potential presence on rocky exoplanets.

Understanding the Detection of Water at Interstellar Distances

Despite not having detected planet formation within the inner disk of PDS 70 yet, astronomers are confident about the abundance of raw materials necessary for the creation of rocky worlds. The presence of water vapor suggests that any rocky planets that might develop would have access to water from the onset.

The MINDS team has suggested two possible scenarios to explain the presence of water. One theory is that the water molecules are forming within the inner disk through the combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Alternatively, ice-covered dust particles might be moving from the colder outer disk to the warmer inner disk, causing the ice to sublimate and turn into vapor.

The research team plans to utilize two other Webb instruments, the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), to conduct a more detailed study of the PDS 70 system.

Feature image: artistic representation of the PDS 70 star and its innermost protoplanetary disk. One of the two protoplanets in the outer disk is shown in the upper right. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI).

Source: NASA, ESA, Nature.