Unraveling Mysteries! How did water appear?
Unraveling Mysteries! How did water appear?
Our world is surrounded by water, teeming with life! How did the water come to be on earth, unique in the universe? Astronomers using the james Webb Space Telescope have observed a rare comet in our solar system, uncovering a new cosmic mystery while making a long-awaited scientific breakthrough. The absence of carbon dioxide was a big surprise. Because it's carbon dioxide, about 10 percent of the volatiles in comets are usually easily vaporized by the sun's radiation. Scientists are studying the origin of Earth's abundant water, and new observations show the chemical composition for the first time in a major comet, or Kam was discovered.
Our world is surrounded by water, teeming with life! How did the water come to be on earth, unique in the universe? Astronomers using the james Webb Space Telescope have observed a rare comet in our solar system, uncovering a new cosmic mystery while making a long-awaited scientific breakthrough. The absence of carbon dioxide was a big surprise. Because it's carbon dioxide, about 10 percent of the volatiles in comets are usually easily vaporized by the sun's radiation. Scientists are studying the origin of Earth's abundant water, and new observations show the chemical composition for the first time in a major comet, or Kam was discovered.
Astronomers used various observation methods for 15 years before making the discovery. Webb's NIRSpec (near-infrared spectrometer) has detected gas - specifically water vapor - near a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time. This indicates that water ice from the primordial solar system could have been sustained in that region. But unlike other comets, Comet 238P/Read has no carbon dioxide. Stephanie Milam, Webb's Associate Program Scientist for Planetary Science and co-author of the study documenting the discovery said that the world, surrounded by water, is teeming with life! On Earth, unique in the universe, we don't know how water got there. Comet Reed was one of the first three comets used to establish the category of main belt comets, a relatively new classification. Previously, it was believed that comets lived beyond Neptune's orbit, in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, where their icy bodies could be kept away from the Sun.
The carbon dioxide Mystery:
Meanwhile, the absence of carbon dioxide was a big surprise, since it usually makes up about 10 percent of the volatiles in a comet, which is easily vaporized by the Sun's radiation. Scientists theorize that Comet Reed may have had carbon dioxide in it when it formed, but it lost it due to warmer temperatures. As quoted by NASA, lead author of the study Michael Kelly, an astronomer at the university of Maryland, said that carbon dioxide evaporates more easily than ice, and if this had been going on for billions of years, the carbon dioxide could have disappeared.