The James Webb Space Telescope has helped detect water in a young planetary system, known as PDS 70 which is 370 light-years away. According to a report by CNN, the planetary system has a star at its center and astronomers have detected water vapors in the inner disk, less than 100 million miles from the star.
According to astronomers, two different disks of gas and dust which have potential to form both stars and planets, surround the star. The inner and outer disks have a gap of 5 billion miles between them. In the gap there are two known gas giant planets who are circling the star and a third "sibling" planet is forming there. Astronomers claim that small, rocky planets like the Earth could form in the inner disk of PDS 70 if it is anything like our solar system. A study on these latest findings has been published in the Journal Nature.
“We’ve seen water in other disks, but not so close in and in a system where planets are currently assembling. We couldn’t make this type of measurement before Webb,” said lead study author Giulia Perotti, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, in a statement.
“We find a relatively high amount of small dust grains. Combined with our detection of water vapor, the inner disk is a very exciting place,” said study coauthor Rens Waters, professor of astrophysics at Radboud University in the Netherlands, in a statement.
{{/usCountry}}“We find a relatively high amount of small dust grains. Combined with our detection of water vapor, the inner disk is a very exciting place,” said study coauthor Rens Waters, professor of astrophysics at Radboud University in the Netherlands, in a statement.
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Despite closeness to the star, the water vapours have likely survived due to dust shielding which protects it from the star's ultraviolet radiation.
“This discovery is extremely exciting, as it probes the region where rocky planets similar to Earth typically form,” said study coauthor Thomas Henning, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy director and coprincipal investigator of Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, in a statement.