The young star V883 Orion has heated up the surrounding cloud, turning frozen particles into gas. This allowed the structure of the protoplanetary disk to be studied with the radio telescope and large quantities of water to be observed in it.
When a young star is born in the central region of the gas cloud, the remains of its matter form a protoplanetary disk, from which planets, asteroids and comets may arise in the future. Such a cloud surrounds V883 Orion, located 1300 light-years away. A team of astronomers led by John Tobin (John Tobin) has used the ALMA radio telescope array to look at the structure of the protoplanetary cloud of the distant star, and found large masses of water in it.
Some water molecules include the heavy isotope of hydrogen, deuterium. They form under slightly different conditions than usual, allowing us to determine their place of origin. In particular, the heavy water content of some comets in the solar system is identical to that of Earth. This is considered one of the arguments in favor of the hypothesis that most of the water was brought to our planet by comets. The work conducted by Tobin and his co-authors also pointed to the same.
Astronomers were helped by the unusually high temperature of the protoplanetary disk V883 Orion. Not long ago, the young star flared up strongly, heating the surrounding cloud. As a result, water and other compounds here went from their usual frozen form to a gaseous phase. This greatly facilitated the acquisition of spectra and allowed us to elucidate the distribution of ordinary and heavy water, carbon monoxide (CO), and dust.
Water in the disk of V883 Orion turned out to be exceptionally abundant - at least 1,200 times more than on the entire Earth. According to scientists, the new observations can close the chain of movement of water from the interstellar medium in the protoplanetary clouds and then - to the emerging planets in them, such as ours. For now, however, the question of the origin of moisture on Earth remains definitively unresolved. Some data show that it could be formed as a result of geological processes on the planet itself, and simultaneously with oil.