Water bodies similar to that seen in Saturn's rings spotted in deep space

Scientists have detected water in a distant star system that is still taking shape. The James Webb Space Telescope has picked up hints of water ice in the debris disk that orbits a star named HD 181327, which is similar to our Sun. Located 155 light-years from Earth, this system is only 23 million years old. The discovery has lent credence to earlier theories that water was delivered to Earth by asteroids and comets from deep space.

The details were published in the journal Nature.

A debris disk, or a protoplanetary disk, surrounds the young star. It will be millions of years before the dust and other material coalesce to form planets. Chen Xie, study's lead author and an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), said in a NASA statement, "Webb unambiguously detected not just water ice, but crystalline water ice, which is also found in locations like Saturn's rings and icy bodies in our Solar System's Kuiper Belt."

He added that "water ice helps facilitate planet formation."

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"Icy materials may also ultimately be 'delivered' to terrestrial planets that may form over a couple of hundred million years in systems like this."

Water found in outer region of disk

JWST's near-infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec) zoomed in on the star HD 181327, hinting at chemical traces of water in the outer part of the system's debris disk. Further calculations found that over 20 per cent of the debris ring's mass comprised water that exists in the form of ice mixed with dust.

While a majority of this water is in the outer reaches of the ring, only 8 per cent of it was found halfway in from the disk's edge. No ice water existed towards the centre of the system. This is probably because of the radiation released by the star. However, some of the rocks might have water inside them.

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The star system has been on the radar of NASA scientists for years. The possibility that it harbours water was raised for the first time in 2008 when NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope observed it. Christine Chen, an associate astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and co-author on the study, recalled that there might be "ice in debris disks".

The intriguing part is that this debris disk is similar to the Kuiper Belt in our solar system, which is filled with asteroids, comets and other icy bodies. The water ice in HD 181327 is similar to what JWST saw in its recent observations of Kuiper Belt objects. Both of them have dirty snowballs, with several ongoing collisions noticed.

These collisions are what helped JWST pick up the presence of water ice in the system. "HD 181327 is a very active system," says Chen. "There are regular, ongoing collisions in its debris disk. When those icy bodies collide, they release tiny particles of dusty water ice that are perfectly sized for Webb to detect."