Researchers have found water vapor in the disc around a young star exactly where planets may be forming. Water is a key ingredient for life on Earth, and is also thought to play a significant role in planet formation.
Yet, until now, we had never been able to map how water is distributed in a stable, cool disc -- the type of disc that offers the most favorable conditions for planets to form around stars.
"It is truly remarkable that we can not only detect but also capture detailed images and spatially resolve water vapour at a distance of 450 light-years from us ," adds co-author Leonardo Testi, an astronomer at the University of Bologna, Italy. The 'spatially resolved' observations with ALMA allow astronomers to determine the distribution of water in different regions of the disc.
"It is truly exciting to directly witness, in a picture, water molecules being released from icy dust particles," says Elizabeth Humphreys, an astronomer at ESO who also participated in the study. The dust grains that make up a disc are the seeds of planet formation, colliding and clumping into ever larger bodies orbiting the star.
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