James Webb telescope discovers frozen water around alien star
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
In a milestone discovery, astronomers have announced that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected water ice drifting through a dusty ring of debris surrounding a distant, sunlike star.
Astronomers have long suspected that water, especially in its frozen form, might be common in the cold, outer reaches of planetary systems beyond our own. That's because in our own solar system, Saturn's moon Enceladus, Jupiter's Ganymede and Europa, and other icy moons are known to contain vast amounts of frozen water. Some of these moons are even thought to harbor subsurface oceans of liquid water, fueling ongoing discussions about their potential to support life.
Now, with JWST's confirmation last week, scientists say they can begin exploring how water — a key ingredient for life as we know it — is distributed and transported in other planetary systems.
The new discovery centers on a star called HD 181327, located about 155 light-years away, in the constellation Telescopium. At just 23 million years old, HD 181327 is a cosmic infant compared with our 4.6 billion-year-old sun, and it's encircled by a broad, dusty debris disk that is rich in small, early building blocks of planets.
"HD 181327 is a very active system," study co-author Christine Chen, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said in a NASA statement. Frequent collisions between icy bodies in this disk are constantly stirring up fine particles of dusty water ice, which are "perfectly sized for Webb to detect," Chen said.
The findings, published May 15 in the journal Nature, suggest these "dirty snowballs" of ice and dust could eventually play a key role in delivering water to future rocky planets that may form over the next few hundred million years. As planets take shape within the disk, comets and other icy bodies could collide with the young worlds and shower them with water — a process thought to have helped seed early Earth with the water that sustains life today.
Related: Did the James Webb telescope really find evidence of alien life? Here's the truth about exoplanet K2-18b.
RELATED STORIES
—Astronomers discover doomed planet shedding a Mount Everest's worth of material every orbit, leaving behind a comet-like tail
—James Webb telescope could find signs of life on alien 'hycean' ocean worlds
—4 tiny, Earth-like planets found circling 2nd-closest star system to us — and could be visited by future human generations
JWST revealed that most of the distant star system's water ice is concentrated in the outer regions of the disk, where temperatures are cold enough for it to remain stable. Closer in, the ice becomes increasingly scarce, likely vaporized by the star's ultraviolet radiation or locked away in larger rocky bodies known as planetesimals, which remain invisible to JWST's infrared instruments.
According to the research team, the debris disk around HD 181327 resembles what the Kuiper Belt — the vast, doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond Neptune — likely looked like billions of years ago during the early stages of our solar system's evolution.
"What's most striking is that this data looks similar to the telescope's other recent observations of Kuiper Belt objects in our own solar system," Chen said in the statement.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The Ocean Is Getting Darker, Threatening All That Lives Within
Almost all life in the ocean depends on the upper waters where sunlight filters in, known as the photic zone – but new research suggests this narrow window of valuable marine light is shrinking in oceans worldwide. In the past 20 years, marine scientists have found, more than a fifth of our oceans have been growing darker. Thomas Davies, a marine biologist from the University of Plymouth, and Tim Smyth, a marine biogeochemist from the University of Exeter, noticed that despite growing concerns from scientists about ocean darkening, nobody had really quantified its extent. "There has been research showing how the surface of the ocean has changed color over the last 20 years, potentially as a result of changes in plankton communities," Davies says. "Our results provide evidence that such changes cause widespread darkening that reduces the amount of ocean available for animals that rely on the Sun and the Moon for their survival and reproduction." Pairing NASA satellite data from 2003 to 2022 with numerical modeling, the duo has uncovered a pattern of the photic zone depth – which inherently constrains the habitat for most ocean life – shrinking across the years. The photic zone is the topmost layer of the ocean, where light from the Sun (including that reflected off the Moon) permeates the water. All marine organisms that photosynthesize – seagrasses, kelps, and most essential of all, phytoplanktons – must live in the shallower parts of this layer to harness the Sun's energy. So the many other organisms that depend on these primary producers – like corals, crustaceans, fish, and marine mammals – hang out in the photic zone too. The study found in nearly 10 percent of the world's oceans, the depth of the photic zone has shrunk by more than 50 meters (164 feet). This means that three-dimensional habitat has become a lot smaller, which leads to greater competition for resources. Even worse, in 2.6 percent of the ocean, the photic zone has reduced by more than 100 meters. "The ocean is far more dynamic than it is often given credit for. For example, we know the light levels within the water column vary massively over any 24-hour period, and animals whose behavior is directly influenced by light are far more sensitive to its processes and change," says Smyth. "If the photic zone is reducing by around 50 meters in large swathes of the ocean, animals that need light will be forced closer to the surface, where they will have to compete for food and the other resources they need. That could bring about fundamental changes in the entire marine ecosystem." A few factors affect the depth of the photic zone. Light that hits the ocean in a vertical nosedive, like equatorial rays shining in the middle of the day, can penetrate further into the water, with fewer photons reflecting off the surface. And the less resistance those plunging photons encounter, in the form of suspended sediment and organic matter, the further they can dive. That's why, in clear tropical waters, light can penetrate up to 80 meters deep. When entering the water at an angle, however, more light reflects off the surface, and photons that do break the surface have to travel farther on their way down. This results in a much narrower photic zone at the poles – less than 10 meters deep in some places. This may partially explain why some of the most prominent changes were seen in the photic zones of the Arctic and Antarctic. But sediment and other suspended matter, like algal blooms, make the water more opaque, affecting the depths that light can reach. This is what Davies and Smyth suspect is darkening the world's waters in recent decades. "A combination of nutrient, organic material, and sediment loading near the coasts and changes in global ocean circulation are probable causes of increases in primary and secondary productivity that have reduced light penetration into surface waters," they write in their research paper. In extreme cases, like the recent algal blooms across Australia's Great Southern Reef, a lack of light can lead to mass mortality events. But the world's photic zones aren't only shrinking near the coast, where we would expect excess runoff from human activities to cloud the waters, as is evident in the Baltic Sea and the eastern coasts of England and Scotland. Darkening was also prominent in the Gulf Stream and the poles, where climate change is rapidly changing the natural systems. "We also rely on the ocean and its photic zones for the air we breathe, the fish we eat, our ability to fight climate change, and for the general health and wellbeing of the planet," Davies says. "Taking all of that into account, our findings represent genuine cause for concern." This research was published in Global Change Biology. Your Salad Could Be Carrying Microplastics From Soil Into Your Body UN Warns: High Odds We'll Exceed 1.5°C Temp Rise by 2029 Earth's Crust Is Hiding Vast Reserves of Hydrogen – Here's How We Can Find It
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trees can help detect volcano eruptions: Study
(NewsNation) — A recent study says trees may now be able to help detect when a volcano is about to erupt. The study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, looking at carbon dioxide levels around Mount Etna in Italy, compared data from sensors around the volcano with satellite imagery and discovered a strong relationship between more carbon dioxide and greener trees. 'There are plenty of satellites we can use to do this kind of analysis,' said Nicole Guinn, a volcanologist at the University of Houston. Dozens sickened in expanding salmonella outbreak linked to recalled cucumbers Across the course of two years, Guinn and a group of researchers found 16 clear spikes in carbon dioxide and the NDVI, matching magma movements underground. The patterns of the spikes were even observed farther away from faults in the mountain. When volcanoes become more active and near eruption, they push magma up closer to the surface while also releasing increased levels of carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide boosts the health of the surrounding trees and makes the leaves greener. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Trump withdraws nominee to lead NASA Jared Isaacman, who has close ties with Elon Musk
Trump withdraws nominee to lead NASA Jared Isaacman, who has close ties with Elon Musk President Trump has pulled his nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire commercial astronaut with close ties to Elon Musk, as NASA administrator. Show Caption Hide Caption Trump calls Elon Musk a 'fantastic guy' amid drug use allegations President Trump said he didn't know about Elon Musk's alleged drug use and backed the billionaire's cost-cutting. WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump has pulled his nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire commercial astronaut with close ties to Elon Musk, as his nominee to serve as administrator of NASA. The White House confirmed the withdrawal on May 31 and said Trump will soon announce a new nominee to lead NASA. No reason was provided for parting ways with Isaacman, who led and financed private astronaut missions Polaris Dawn and Inspiration4, which was carried out by Musk's SpaceX. The withdrawal, first reported by the news website Semafor, comes after the 42-year-old Isaacman already cleared the Senate Commerce Committee in April and appeared on track for a full Senate vote. 'The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump's bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars," White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said in a statement. "It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump's America First agenda, and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon." More: Elon Musk's rise and fall: From Trump's chainsaw-wielding sidekick to a swift exit The move comes a day after Musk, a business partner and friend of Isaacman, left the White House after spending four months as a senior White House adviser overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk joined Trump for an Oval Office news conference to mark the end of the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO's tenure in the White House. Conservative activist Laura Loomer, who has proven influential in many Trump decisions, raised alarm about the status of Isaacman's nomination in an X post, hours before the White House confirmed it was being withdrawn, writing, "There is reason to believe that Isaacman may be facing retaliation because of his friendship with Musk." More: Trump's pick to head NASA has been to space twice: Recapping billionaire's missions Isaacman, founder and CEO of the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, undertook his first private space venture in 2021, when he was commander and financier of the world's first all-civilian extended mission to space. In 2024, he returned to space with an all-civilian crew of amateur spacefarers with the Polaris Dawn missions, which he jointly funded with SpaceX. The Polaris Dawn mission got off the ground on Sept. 10 with the help of a Falcon 9 rocket, which propelled the crew to orbit on a SpaceX Dragon capsule from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew also included pilot Scott 'Kidd' Poteet and mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. NASA has lacked a full-time administrator since Bill Nelson, NASA administrator in the Biden administration, stepped down on Jan. 20 when Trump was inaugurated. Contributing: Eric Lagatta of USA TODAY Reach Joey Garrison @joeygarrison.
