That the water on Earth is even older than the sun is reconsidered by a recent study conducted with Chile’s ALMA radio telescopes.

Assuming that “the water had an extraterrestrial origin that reached the solar system and later on Earth, where life helped originate”, this study hits the nail on the head and would have found the “missing link” that would indicate that the water has already traveled through space before the sun was formed, reports El Heraldo de México.

Astronomers explained through a note from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that “they have detected gaseous water in the planet formation disk around the star V883 Orionis. This water has a chemical signature that explains the water’s journey from star-forming gas clouds to planets.”

“We can now trace the origin of water in our solar system before the formation of the sun,” he notes. John J. TobinAmerican astronomer and lead author of the study published March 8, 2023.

First atomic resolution images of extraterrestrial molecules obtained

How the discovery about water came about

This discovery was made through the composition of the water in the star V883 Orionis, a planet-forming disc about 1300 light-years across from the earth.

The Astronomical Service explains that when a cloud of gas and dust collapses, it forms a star in the center. The cloud material also forms a disc around the star.

Over the course of a few million years, the matter in the disk clumps together to form comets, asteroids and eventually planets.

Tobin and his team used ALMA , of which ESO is a partner, to measure the chemical properties of water and its trajectory from the star-forming cloud to the planets.

That group of scientists analyzed a slightly heavier version of water in which one of the hydrogen atoms has been replaced by deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen.

Because simple water and heavy water form under different conditions, their ratio can be used to track when and where the water formed, they stressed.

New discovery would prove that the appearance of life on Earth happened much earlier than is believed

key star

The journey of water from clouds to young stars, and then from comets to planets, has been observed before, but until now the connection between young stars and comets has been lacking.

V883 Orionis is the missing link in this case, Tobin said.

But looking at the water “was awkward.” (…) “Gasic water is towards the center of the discs, near the star, where it is hottest. Fortunately, a recent study showed that the V883 Orionis disk was unusually hot.”

The team used ALMA, an array of radio telescopes in northern Chile, to observe the gaseous water on that key star.

From the observations, ESO noted, they found that this disk contains at least 1,200 times the amount of water in all of Earth’s oceans.