Michael Coy
SPANISH astronomers have uncovered the presence of water ice in a distant young star system, providing insights into how life-enabling water may have arrived on Earth.
The finding, published in Nature, sheds light on a process thought to have occurred in our own solar system around four billion years ago.
Back then, the orbits of the gas giants – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – shifted dramatically, sending a barrage of icy comets and asteroids hurtling towards Earth and other rocky planets. It is thought that these impacts delivered the vast amounts of water necessary for life to emerge.
Now, scientists have found similar conditions forming around another star, offering evidence that this process is not unique to our solar system.
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Leading the research is Noemi Pinilla-Alonso, an astrophysicist from Asturias, now based at the University of Oviedo under Spain’s ‘Atrae’ programme, which brings back top researchers from abroad.
She and her team confirmed the presence of water ice in a vast ring of dust and rocks encircling the star HD 181327, which is 155 light-years away, bys using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope
“In this star, we are seeing our own past,” said Pinilla-Alonso. “We are probably witnessing something very similar to the events that led to the formation of our own solar system.”
The star is relatively young at 23 million years old – compared to our Sun’s 4.6 billion – and is surrounded by a circumstellar disc roughly three times the size of our Kuiper Belt, stretching some 12 billion miles.
This is the first time crystalline water ice has been confirmed to be in such an environment.
Water ice had previously only been confirmed on some moons of the gas giants and in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.
While astronomers had suspected ice in systems like HD 181327, they lacked the tools to detect it – until the James Webb telescope, with its infrared capabilities, made it possible.
Crystalline ice, the same form that appears in Earth’s glaciers and in parts of the Kuiper Belt, forms under relatively stable conditions and differs from the more common amorphous ice, which forms quickly and without structure in the cold vacuum of space.
“Amorphous ice is the norm in the universe because it forms so quickly,” explained Pinilla-Alonso.
“But what we’ve found is crystalline water ice, which means the conditions in this young system are allowing it to organise into a hexagonal structure – just like what we see on Earth and in our outer solar system. That’s a revelation.”
The presence of ice – and also of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and essential minerals – suggests that the building blocks for planets and potentially even life are being assembled in real time.
The collisions of icy bodies within the disc are thought to be generating ever-larger objects – precursors to full-fledged planets.
These impacts also distribute ice and organic material throughout the system, much aas is thought to have happened in our own early solar system.
Dr Guillem Anglada, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia (IAA-CSIC) who was not involved in the study, praised its importance.
“It’s a very significant discovery, though not entirely unexpected,” he said. “It clearly shows there’s a reservoir of water ice in the outer regions of the system, and thanks to constant collisions, that material is being spread out.”
Such ice-rich bodies, if nudged inwards by the gravitational pull of giant planets, could one day collide with rocky planets forming closer to the star – just as scientists believe happened to Earth, delivering the water that fills our oceans.
While early modelling suggests planets may already exist in the HD 181327 system, researchers estimate that even if they haven’t yet formed, they could emerge within the next 100 million years.
Back in our own celestial neighbourhood, astronomers continue investigating the possibility of a ninth planet on the outer fringes of the solar system – one that may be disturbing the orbits of distant icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt.
Meanwhile, the James Webb Space Telescope continues to offer revolutionary glimpses into the universe’s past, with Spanish scientists at the forefront of its discoveries.
PLANET Earth acquired its water – and therefore life – by means of a disaster, scientists believe.
Four billion years ago, our solar system’s “gas giants” (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) changed orbit. This unleashed a shower of asteroids, comets and other ‘space junk’ to bombard the Earth, Mars and other rocky planets.
Luckily for us, these lumps of space rock deposited billions of tons of ice when they hit us, enabling life to develop.
Now, a team of Spanish astronomers has discovered water ice for the first time in a young star system far beyond our sun.
It’s located in a huge ring of dust and rocks that orbits HD 181327, a star 155 light-years away.
The discovery is important evidence that what happened in our solar system can happen everywhere else in the universe.
“In this star, we are seeing our own past,” says Asturian Noemí Pinilla-Alonso, co-author of the study.
The work was made possible thanks to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. It was published this Wednesday in “Nature”, the leading journal of global science.
Until now, the presence of water ice had only been confirmed on some moons of giant planets, and other bodies that form the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Scientists suspected the presence of ice in HD 181327, but were unable to confirm it.
The extraordinary capabilities of the infrared instruments on the James Webb telescope, launched in 2021, have now proved the presence of water beyond any doubt.
The star is only 23 million years old—a mere baby compared to our Sun’s 4.6 billion years—and its disk is about three times larger than the Kuiper Belt, spanning about 12 billion miles.
“Ice on Earth is crystalline; it forms under the right conditions to take on a hexagonal shape,” explains Pinilla-Alonso.
“Amorphous ice, on the other hand, forms rapidly and therefore doesn’t have time to organise itself. This is the most common type of ice in the universe.
Interestingly, in the Kuiper Belt, the Webb experiment has shown us that crystalline water is present in all objects where water is present, the same type now detected in HD 181327, something we didn’t know before and are trying to explain,” she says.
Astronomers believe that the bodies orbiting within the dust cloud are colliding with each other, generating larger bodies that may one day become planets.
These impacts also scatter ice particles throughout the system. The presence of carbon monoxide and possibly carbon dioxide, along with essential minerals, has also been confirmed in this star.
“We are probably seeing things very similar to what happened at the origin of our own solar system,” comments Pinilla-Alonso.
“Observing this disc of dust allows us to understand the bridges between these different phases for the first time.”
She recently joined the University of Oviedo as part of the “Atrae” programme and co-authored the study with colleagues from the Universities of Florida and Arizona, and the Space Telescope Institute, the James Webb mission centre.
Guillem Anglada, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), who was not involved in the study, emphasises its value.
“It’s a very important discovery, although not entirely unexpected,” he argues.
His team has confirmed the presence of ice in these rings with both space and ground-based telescopes.
“This work shows quite clearly that there is a reservoir of ice in the outermost layers that is later spread thanks to collision.”
Ice-laden bodies pushed by giant planets can eventually collide with rocky planets, forming oceans of liquid water.
“This is what happened in our solar system, but it’s just a theory. We’re still far from knowing how it happened, and each case could be different,” cautions Anglada.
Preliminary studies suggest the presence of planets in this belt.
And even if there weren’t any, the authors of this new study estimate that they could form in about 100 million more years.
Meanwhile, closer to home, data continues to accumulate on the possible presence of a ninth planet in the solar system, which could be disrupting the movement of icy bodies in the most remote areas of the Kuiper Belt.
