Astronomers have confirmed the presence of crystalline water ice in the debris disk surrounding a young star 155 light-years away from Earth, using NASA's Webb Space Telescope for the first time.
The research results published in the British journal Nature have confirmed scientists' decades-long speculation that other stellar systems indeed harbor frozen water resources similar to those in our solar system.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University pointed out that the Webb Telescope confirmed the existence of crystalline water ice in the debris disk around the Sun-like star HD 181327. Previously, astronomers had also discovered crystalline water ice in the rings of Saturn and Kuiper belt objects within our solar system.
A debris disk is generally a disk-shaped structure surrounding a star, composed of dust, ice particles, and remnants from planetary collisions. All the water ice detected by the Webb Telescope in this star is mixed with dust particles, forming very small 'dirty snowball' structures. Observational data show that the distribution of these water ices is uneven, with most located in the farthest and coldest regions from the star.
This exoplanetary star is approximately 23 million years old, much younger than the over 4.6 billion-year-old Sun, but it has slightly more mass and a higher temperature, forming around it a debris disk with ongoing collisions, structurally similar to the early Kuiper belt in the solar system.
Water ice is an important component in debris disks around young stars, playing a key role in planet formation. It serves as the building material for giant planets and can also deliver water resources to rocky planets through small bodies like comets and asteroids.