Water On Earth And In Our Solar System Could Be Older Than The Sun, New Study Claims

Could water on Earth be older than our Sun? A new study says so. Astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope and found water in gaseous form in the disc that surrounds the protostar V883 Orionis.

Such accretion discs are usually ring-shaped and contain matter like gas, dust, asteroids, etc. that also help create new planets around young stars. The water found in this disc could help explain how water is transported to planets.

ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

How water was discovered around a protostar

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) team used ALMA to study the chemical signatures of the water around V883 Orionis, a protostar. Essentially, V883 Orionis is in its earliest stage of becoming a star. Over time, the matter in the disc surrounding the protostar will lead to the birth of comets, asteroids, and planets like Earth.

For long, scientists have attempted to understand the source of water on Earth. While some claim that a foreign object like a comet could have brought water to Earth, others suggest that water on Earth predates the Sun, implying it might have been transported from this accretion disc when our solar system hadn't formed.

ESO/L. Cal?ada

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"The composition of the water in the disc is very similar to that of comets in our own solar system. This is confirmation of the idea that the water in planetary systems formed billions of years ago, before the Sun, in interstellar space, and has been inherited by both comets and Earth, relatively unchanged," said John J. Tobin, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and also the study's lead author that was published in the journal Nature on March 8.

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ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Observing water in a star that is yet to be born is not an easy task, for most water in the accretion disc is frozen, study's co-author Margot Leemker said. But a dramatic outburst of energy from the star caused the disc to become unusually hot - helping water melt. In gaseous form, water becomes observable, and that's how scientists came to the potential conclusion that all water on Earth predates the Sun.

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