Webb Telescope Spots Water (Vapor) in a Nearby Planetary System

"Astronomers have detected water vapor swirling close to a nearby star," reports CNN, "indicating that the planets forming around it might someday be able to support life." The young planetary system, known as PDS 70, is 370 light-years away... Circling it are two known gas giant planets, and researchers recently determined that one of them, PDS 70b, may share its orbit with a third "sibling" planet that is forming there...

Two different disks of gas and dust — the ingredients necessary to form both stars and planets — surround the star. The inner and outer disks are separated by a gap spanning 5 billion miles (8 billion kilometers). The gas giants are in the gap, where they orbit the star. The Webb telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument detected the signature of water vapor in the inner disk, less than 100 million miles (160 million kilometers) from the star. Astronomers believe that inner disk is where small, rocky planets similar to those in our solar system could form if PDS 70 is anything like our solar system...

"We've seen water in other disks, but not so close in and in a system where planets are currently assembling. We couldn't make this type of measurement before Webb," said lead study author Giulia Perotti, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, in a statement... No planets have been found forming in the inner disk, but all the ingredients necessary have been detected. The presence of water vapor suggests the planets could contain water in some form. Only time will tell whether the planets form — and if they are potentially habitable for life.

Question

[quonset]

If water exists, does that mean life (in some form) will exist? We know there are microbes and such which live in extreme conditions on this planet, though some water sources are too alkaline for life to exist. But if the water temperature is moderate, shouldn't something eventually evolve to live in that water regardless of other conditions such as higher gravity/pressure/radiation/etc?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us know if you find out!

Re:

[jslolam]

Water vapor is a pure substance that emits a distinct wavelength/freuqncy in the electro magnetic spectrum. The airliner is not so lucky.

Re: How is it we can spot...

[blue trane]

Should they have just AirTagged that jetliner?

Re:Question

[Arzaboa]

Given that stars are fusing Hydrogen into Helium, Lithium and Oxygen etc., and water is 2H's and 1O, there is a lot of water in the Universe.

There is H2O on every planet within our Solar System, but complex life is only on one.

It takes much more than water to make life be able to stick around and evolve. Take Mars for example. Mars seems to have had oceans of water, but for the most part it evaporated back into the heavens. What didn't is bound up by other processes internal to the planet. Think water and dry ice, sulfer dioxide, co2, hydrazine, methane, etc...

To have life, you need a stable environment. A star that doesn't have lots of storms. Magnetic fields that help and don't hurt. Other planets to block incoming meteors/asteroids. Our moon seems to have helped. It seems without plate tectonics, we wouldn't be where we were today either. The list goes on....

Of course, none of this precludes life. The only way to know for sure is to check back in a few billion years.

--
Chemistry can be a good and bad thing. Chemistry is good when you make love with it. Chemistry is bad when you make crack with it. - Adam Sandler

Re:

[The Evil Atheist]

To have life, you need a stable environment. A star that doesn't have lots of storms. Magnetic fields that help and don't hurt. Other planets to block incoming meteors/asteroids. Our moon seems to have helped. It seems without plate tectonics, we wouldn't be where we were today either.

Extremophiles kind of proves only plate tectonics (which implies oceans) is necessary. Life can probably get started, and sustain itself, around ocean vents without being impacted by solar activity or magnetic fields, or the moon.

I also question the need for planets to "block" anything. When a planetary system is forming, there will always be too much material to block - otherwise we wouldn't have planets forming in the first place. The moon itself formed because of a big collision. For us, it was really

Re:

[backslashdot]

You will likely need other elements too (life as we know it requires, minimally, at least hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous .. plus most likely sulfur, sodium and magnesium too). And then, it needs the ability for those elements to mix (likely in isolation) in a combination of various different conditions.

Re:

[ls671]

And some alien seeding magic powder as well of course...

Re:

[backslashdot]

Intense ionizing radiation is probably a no go for life that isn't in a shielded environment. The radiation will dramatically reduce the ability for molecules to be stable, by constantly ionizing them. Ironically, you probably do need SOME radiation to kickstart things and add variation/randomization.

Re:

[Lord Rust]

No, probably not. Water in itself is a *very* common molecule in space and it can occur in wildly unhospitable conditions. And, of course, even if the physical conditions are somewhat sane, water is hardly the only thing you need for life. There is at least traces of water pretty much everywhere in there solar system, including the sun itself (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sunwater.html). As far as we know, there's life only on Earth in this system.

Re:

[Tablizer]

> shouldn't something eventually evolve to live in that water

Nobody really knows the probability of that, as it's never been tested in practice.

It's also possible the origin of life is very rare, but panspermia is a theory that our galaxy is populated with "tainted asteroids" that spread life across star systems. Thus, it's possible that life only arose once in our galactic neighborhood, but evolved to spread itself via space rocks.

There are bacteria spore types that have proved relatively space-hardy in

Or it leads to stars with subsurface oceans

[Narrowband]

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2783/ [xkcd.com]

No planet there...

[Luca01]

There is no planet in the dust and gas disk yet...but you better stick around, in less than 2 billion years something could change.

Good science, but boring.

[Eunomion]

Stop playing coy and just look for what you actually want.

Re:

[classiclantern]

When I hear Scientists, Astrophysicists, Mathematicians, and Engineers talk about the projects they have invested their careers in, they sound exactly like theists who are wrapped in their bubble of religious fantasy. I completely understand their delusions. Everybody wants to think they have a useful purpose. I'm all for discovery and exploration but to suggest we are going to find life in the Universe is psychotic. The Universe is hostile to all forms of life. Netflix has a show about the development

Re:

[Tablizer]

If they view Webb as a stepping stone, then it's indeed an instrument that's part of the hunt for space-life. If instead they think THIS is the device that will find sure-shot life, that's indeed wishful thinking. It could happen, but not a good bet.

I'd guestimate the chance of it finding "fairly likely" evidence, such as an atmospheric signature similar to ours, at about 25%, and finding sure-shot evidence about 2%.

Arthur Dent

[classiclantern]

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'nearby' that I wasn't previously aware of.

Re:

[guygo]

At the speed of the Parker Solar Probe (so-far the fastest man made object) it would only take us 750,000 years to get there! So nearby...

Long way off ...

[CaptainDork]

At a constant speed of 25,000 mph, it would take approximately 10 trillion years to travel the distance of 370 light-years. This is far longer than the age of the universe at around 14 billion years. So while theoretically possible, it is not feasible with current technology to traverse such an immense interstellar distance at that speed.

Re:

[CaptQuark]

Yeah, 370 light-years is a long distance away. Even if we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 370 years to get there. Not long in galactic terms, but beyond the lifespan of us mere mortals.

Re:

[groobly]

Not a problem. Most of this travel occurs in our eternal afterlife.

keep on eye on it

[groobly]

Well, we better keep on eye on that star then, to check whether it does get life 2.3 billion years from now.

Webb Telescope

[andreamaxwell]

Exciting discovery by the Webb Telescope! Water vapor found in a nearby planetary system opens doors to potential insights about extraterrestrial environments.