/data/photo/2023/05/16/64632f025ad08.png?fit=%2C&ssl=1 "“James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Water on Main Belt Comet Read”")
KOMPAS.com – Astronomers use the James Webb Space Telescope to observe rare comets in our Solar System.
Apart from making scientific breakthroughs, the telescope apparently managed to reveal something else that was unexpected.
Also read: 7 Amazing Facts about Water on Earth
For the first time, the space telescope detected water on Comet Read, a main belt comet or comet located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
This discovery comes after 15 years of efforts by astronomers using different observation methods.
Origin of comets
Quoting CNN, Tuesday (16/5/2023) comets are usually in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, icy regions beyond Neptune’s orbit that can preserve some of the frozen material left over from the formation of the Solar System.
Also read: How Does the Comet Tail Form?
Comets travel on long, oval-shaped orbits around the Sun that can take thousands of years and have flowing tails that develop when cold bodies occasionally pass close to the Sun.
Their hazy appearance and tail material distinguish comets from asteroids.
But there is a rare subclass of comets called main belt comets. The object has a circular orbit around the Sun which periodically exhibits comet-like behavior in general.
Given its location in the warm inner Solar System and closer to the Sun than most comets, main belt comets are not expected to harbor much ice until now. However, recent findings have found otherwise.
Furthermore, this finding can add more evidence to the theory of how water became an abundant resource on Earth early in its history. Where water-rich comets and asteroids probably collided with the primordial Earth and delivered water to the planet.
“Our water-filled, vibrant and unique world is a mystery. We’re not sure how all this water got here,” said Stefanie Milam, deputy project scientist for James Webb at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
And understanding the history of water distribution in the Solar System will help to understand other planetary systems.
Also read: Signs of Water on Mars Discovered by Chinese Explorers
Rare comet
Main belt comets were first discovered in 2006 by Henry Hsieh, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Comet Read is one of them.
Accurate data collected then helped astronomers to determine traces of water vapor around Comet Read shortly after its approach to the Sun.
“With Webb’s observations of Comet Read, we can now show that water ice from the early Solar System could be preserved in the asteroid belt,” said Michael Kelley, astronomer and principal research scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park.
It’s just that along with this discovery, a new puzzle arose. Comet Read has no detectable carbon dioxide, which is a building block of about 10 percent that is evaporated by the Sun in all other comets.
It is possible that the warmer temperatures of the main asteroid belt caused Comet Read to lose carbon dioxide over time.
Also read: What is a comet, a comet that orbits the sun
“Being in the asteroid belt for a long time can cause carbon dioxide to evaporate more easily than water ice and can permeate for billions of years,” said Kelley.
In addition, Comet Read may have formed in a warmer pocket of the Solar System without carbon dioxide.
The team also wanted to study other main belt comets more closely and compare them with Webb’s data from Comet Read to see if they also lacked carbon dioxide.
“But in the meantime, Webb has now confirmed there is water in the comet and it will be very exciting to follow up on this discovery with a sample collection mission and learn more,” Milam added.
The study detailing the findings is published in the journal Nature.
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2023-05-17 01:00:00
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