Scientists have recently discovered huge amounts of water in a planet forming disc surrounding the star TW Hydrae (which I am going to refer to as TWH for the duration of this blog). TWH is an orange dwarf star which is very similar to our own sun. It differs only in the fact that it is slightly less massive and luminous. It has always been thought that planet forming rings have held water but this is the first time it has been detected.
The UV rays from TWH caused water molecules to break free from the ice allowing the researches to capture the light signature of the water.
Fantastic..... So there is a big ol' ring of water in space.... Why is that so special?? WELL I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!!!!!!!!!!
See, life tends to be created when water is present under the proper conditions so we can make an assumption that if(water == true AND isHabitableZone == true){
life.create
}
else
{
planet == noLife
}
In other words, if a planet has water under the right conditions, chances are there will be the developement of some life. But where does this water come from? This is where these big ol' rings of water vapour come in (I'm sorry, I just felt the need to throw some java into the mix).
The planet forming ring has rather frigid outer edge which would cause the water to freeze around dust particles forming pieces of ice. These ice pieces could do one of two things. They could be used like a planetary adhesive and help planet formation by assisting in the sticking-together of dust particles or they could just chill in space (that's right, I made a space pun.... if you didn't get it, space is cold, chill is a verb that implies making something cold with a dual meaning found in american slang in which it is used to describe relaxing or hanging out.... chill....cold..... haha......) and be comets like the ones that pass through our solar system and chill in the kuiper belt (there I go with the puns again, my sense of humour is endless).
Ice sticking planets together creates the planet on which life can form is pretty important but its the free roaming comets that are of interes to us now.
After a planet is formed chances are it will have no water because it was probably vapourized during accretion (assuming it was created through accretion). So it is up to these ice bearing comets to supply our happy little planet with water! Due to the high volumes of ice in the planet forming ring, chances are there will be a lot of comets and these comets will most likely end up ramming into the planet and bring a bunch of elements and compounds with it!
If the environment allows it, the water can settle and form oceans and then, within these oceans, life has a chance of forming!
I get weekly emails from http://www.space.com (which I recommend checking out) and one of them was about an icy dwarf planet in the kuiper belt with a decaying atmosphere of methane. I was going to write about that.... But then I saw this, so I wrote about this. What a thrilling anecdote from MrAstrowhat.
What's green and has wheels????
Grass... I lied about the wheels.
-MrAstrowhat
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