Scientists zoom into the distant solar system. It’s full of water.

Astronomers are excited about this.

Using a sprawling astronomical array in Chile’s high desert — the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — scientists have found vast amounts of water around a young, evolving solar system (technically still in its “protoplanetary disk” stage). The star HL Tauri is located 450 light-years away in space. However, in the disk surrounding HL Tauri, the powerful observatory was able to spot it At least three times The amount of water in the Earth’s oceans.

“It is truly remarkable that we can not only detect, but also capture detailed images and spatially resolve water vapor at a distance of 450 light-years from us,” said Leonardo Testi, an astronomer at the University of Bologna who participated in the observation. In the current situation.

but this is not all.

In the inner disk of material orbiting the young star there is a visible gap, a hint of where a planet could form. This is where the water is.

“I never imagined that we could capture an image of oceans of water vapor in the same region where the planet was likely to form,” explained Stefano Facchini, an astronomer at the University of Milan who led the research. The research was recently published in the journal Science Nature astronomy.

“I never imagined that we could capture an image of oceans of water vapor in the same region where the planet was likely forming.”

In the image below, the blue areas show where the water molecules are. The red areas are rings of dust orbiting the star HL Tauri, which is similar to our Sun (when it was much younger).

The ALMA telescope array, located at 16,597 feet (5,058 meters) in the extremely dry Atacama region, is a collection of 66 telescopes working in unison to effectively create a sprawling radio telescope. Radio waves, a type of energy or light produced by objects throughout the universe (such as visible light or X-rays), are captured by ALMA’s large antennas.

The dusty region of space, in the constellation Taurus, where the developing star HL Tauri is located.
Credit: ESO/Digital Sky Survey 2

Over the next millions of years, the potential planet might include this water as the molecules freeze onto dust particles, which could coalesce into larger planet-forming bodies.

It’s too early to say whether a water world might one day exist around the star HL Tauri. But astronomers have found evidence of ocean-covered planets in the universe. Water worlds and moons, such as Enceladus and Europa in our solar system, could be common objects in our Milky Way Galaxy.