{"id":81818,"date":"2025-10-18T00:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T00:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/81818\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T00:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T00:43:13","slug":"alma-detects-heavy-water-in-planet-forming-disk-around-distant-protostar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/81818\/","title":{"rendered":"ALMA Detects Heavy Water in Planet-Forming Disk around Distant Protostar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array<\/a> (ALMA) have detected doubly deuterated water (D2O), or \u2018heavy water,\u2019 in the protoplanetary disk around V883 Orionis<\/a>, a protostar located<\/a> 1,300 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. This detection reveals that some of the water found in comets \u2014 and maybe even Earth \u2014 is older than the disk\u2019s star itself, offering breakthrough insights into the history of water in our own Solar System.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

This artist\u2019s impression shows the evolution of heavy water molecules as they have been observed in giant molecular clouds, a planet forming-disk, and comets \u2014 before they eventually may have made their way to Earth. Image credit: NSF \/ AUI \/ NSF\u2019s NRAO \/ P. Vosteen \/ B. Saxton.<\/p>\n

Water may have been delivered to Earth via cometary and\/or asteroid impacts, tracing the pristine material left over from the protoplanetary disk where our Solar System originated.<\/p>\n

However, it is unclear whether the water ice on these bodies primarily formed in, for example, the protoplanetary disk phase or is much older and originated from the parent molecular cloud.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur detection indisputably demonstrates that the water seen<\/a> in a planet-forming disk around V883 Orionis must be older than the central star and formed at the earliest stages of star and planet formation,\u201d said Dr. Margot Leemker, an astronomer at the University of Milan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis presents a major breakthrough in understanding the journey of water through planet formation, and how this water made its way to our Solar System, and possibly Earth, through similar processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chemical fingerprinting of heavy water shows that these water molecules have survived the violent processes of star and planet formation, traveling billions of kilometers through space and time before, ending up in planetary systems like our own.<\/p>\n

Instead of being destroyed and reformed in the disk, the bulk of this water is inherited from the earliest, coldest stages of star formation, a cosmic hand-me-down that may also be present on Earth today.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil now, we weren\u2019t sure if most of the water in comets and planets formed fresh in young disks like V883 Orionis, or if it\u2019s \u2018pristine,\u2019 originating from ancient interstellar clouds,\u201d said Dr. John Tobin, an astronomer at NSF\u2019s National Radio Astronomy Observatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe detection of heavy water, using sensitive isotopologue ratios (D2O\/H2O), proves the water\u2019s ancient heritage and provides a missing link between clouds, disks, comets, and ultimately planets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis finding is the first direct evidence of water\u2019s interstellar journey from clouds to the materials that form planetary systems \u2014 unchanged and intact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s paper<\/a> was published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

M. Leemker et al. Pristine ices in a planet-forming disk revealed by heavy water. Nat Astron, published online October 15, 2025; doi: 10.1038\/s41550-025-02663-y<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected doubly deuterated water (D2O), or \u2018heavy water,\u2019 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[39447,8570,56879,56880,56881,4073,85,46,2760,48326,56882,141,4952,56883,1865],"class_list":{"0":"post-81818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-alma","9":"tag-comet","10":"tag-deuterium","11":"tag-exocomet","12":"tag-heavy-water","13":"tag-ice","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-planet-formation","17":"tag-protoplanetary-disk","18":"tag-protostar","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-star","21":"tag-v883-orionis","22":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}