Lost Oceans in the Orion Nebula: Where Does the Water Go
Researchers have discovered that water vanishes and reappears within a planetary-forming disk in the Orion Nebula. An international team, including Western astrophysicists Els Peeters and Jan Cami, found that water disappears and reemerges within a disk at the center of the Orion Nebula.
This discovery was made through a unique multidisciplinary approach that combined observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and quantum physics calculations.
The study, led by Paris-Saclay University doctoral student Marion Zannese, was published as part of the PDRs4All Early Release Science program. PDRs4All is one of 13 Early Release Science programs selected by NASA, bringing together an international consortium.
Peeters, the lead researcher of PDRs4All and a faculty member at Western’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, stated, “It’s impressive to realize that with just a few pixels of observation and a few lines, we can understand that there’s a vast ocean of water vaporizing each month.” “This discovery is based on only a small fraction of our spectroscopic data. Having much more data at our disposal is exciting, and I’m eager to see what else we can uncover.”
Water is essential for the emergence of life. Most of Earth’s oceans formed in the cold regions of interstellar space at temperatures of -250°C before the birth of the solar system. However, some of this water may have disappeared when the solar system was still a gas and dust disk and reformed at higher temperatures (100-500°C).
To understand this mysterious recycling of water, an international team of astronomers directed the JWST toward ‘d203-506,’ a disk in the Orion Nebula that serves as a nursery for planetary systems. Intense ultraviolet radiation from massive stars leads to the disappearance and reformation of water in d203-506, turning it into a true interstellar laboratory.
“James Webb telescope is incredibly powerful. We’re not talking about finding a needle in a haystack; it’s like finding a needle made of needles,” says physics and astronomy professor and PDRs4All core member Cami.
Collaboration with quantum dynamics experts from the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (Spain) and the Leiden Observatory (Netherlands) was key to understanding how the formation and destruction of molecules more than 1,000 light-years away could be observed.
When water is destroyed by ultraviolet light, a hydroxyl molecule is released, and JWST traces the propagation of photons to detect this process. It is estimated that each month, the equivalent of all the Earth’s oceans is destroyed and renewed in the d203-506 system.
But the story doesn’t end there. JWST reveals that hydroxyl, a crucial intermediate in water formation, is abundantly produced from atomic oxygen. This suggests that some of the water forming Earth’s oceans may have gone through a similar cycle.
Source: Lost Oceans in the Orion Nebula: Where Does the Water Go?
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