A group of five galaxies that appear close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one toward the top, one to the upper left, and one toward the bottom are seen in a mosaic or composite of near and mid-infrared data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe and released July 12, 2022. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.
Scientists have announced that the James Webb Space Telescope has achieved a groundbreaking milestone by detecting water within the primary asteroid belt of our solar system. This discovery is significant as researchers hypothesize that this water could potentially be the origin of Earth’s oceans.
The discovery could give scientists insight into how the world’s oceans were formed, US space agency NASA said in a statement to media outlets.
Astronomers using the $10 billion Webb telescope’s near-infrared spectrograph instrument have confirmed that water vapor is present around Comet 238P/Read, which orbits between the gas giant Jupiter and our neighbor Mars.
The discovery confirms the view that icy water can be preserved in the hotter asteroid belt orbiting Jupiter, NASA said, and form the source of water on Earth through asteroids that fell to Earth during the early stages of its formation billions of years ago, long before there were any humans.
Source of water on Earth may be comets
Water near a star is in gaseous form and may have separated from Earth-like, rocky planets in formation, indicating that some astronomers think that comets are the source of water on Earth, according to research published in the prestigious journal Nature.
“As far as we know, it is still a mystery how the water on our Earth, the only planet in the universe that contains life, got here,” said Stefanie Milam, a scientist working at the Webb Planetary Science Project.
Milam said comprehending the water distribution in the solar system aids in our understanding of other planetary systems and their potential to sustain Earth-like planets.
Comet 238P/Read is a comet located in the asteroid belt.
Water on Read’s Comet, but no carbon dioxide
Astronomer Michael Kelley from the University of Maryland confirms water ice presence in main belt space objects using Webb’s precise spectral data. However, data from Webb showed that there is no carbon dioxide on Comet 238P/Read.
Under normal conditions, about 10% of the vaporizable matter of a comet consists of carbon dioxide, but Comet 238/Read lacks this gas. Researchers say this was more of a surprise than the presence of water there.
Kelley gave two potential explanations for the absence of carbon dioxide on the comet: carbon dioxide evaporation and separation from the comet over billions of years, or the formation of the comet in a carbon dioxide-free, warm region of the solar system.
Heidi Hammel from the Association of Research Universities in Astronomy (AURA) consortium said celestial objects in the belt are difficult to detect in advance due to their small size and dimness. In the future, using the Webb Telescope, scientists will investigate whether there is carbon dioxide in other main-belt comets.
