water vapour Archives

August 5, 2024August 5, 2024 by Evan Gough

Fast-Tracking the Search for Habitable Worlds

Astronomers have detected thousands of planets, including dozens that are potentially habitable. To winnow them down, they need to understand their atmospheres and other factors. (NASA Illustration)

Modern astronomy would struggle without AI and machine learning (ML), which have become indispensable tools. They alone have the capability to manage and work with the vast amounts of data that modern telescopes generate. ML can sift through large datasets, seeking specified patterns that would take humans far longer to find.

The search for biosignatures on Earth-like exoplanets is a critical part of contemporary astronomy, and ML can play a big role in it.

May 2, 2024May 2, 2024 by Evan Gough

Is the JWST Now an Interplanetary Meteorologist?

This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b could look like. Image Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

The JWST keeps one-upping itself. In the telescope’s latest act of outdoing itself, it examined a distant exoplanet to map its weather. The forecast?

An unending, blistering inferno driven by ceaseless supersonic winds.

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by Evan Gough

Enceladus’s Fault Lines are Responsible for its Plumes

A false-colour image of the plumes erupting from Enceladus. Image Credit: NASA/ESA

The Search for Life in our Solar System leads seekers to strange places. From our Earthbound viewpoint, an ice-covered moon orbiting a gas giant far from the Sun can seem like a strange place to search for life. But underneath all that ice sits a vast ocean. Despite the huge distance between the moon and the Sun and despite the thick ice cap, the water is warm.

Of course, we’re talking about Enceladus, and its warm, salty ocean—so similar to Earth’s in some respects—takes some of the strangeness away.

February 29, 2024February 29, 2024 by Evan Gough

This Planet-Forming Disk has More Water Than Earth’s Oceans

Astronomers have found water vapour in a disc around a young star exactly where planets may be forming. In this image, the new observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) show the water vapour in shades of blue. Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Facchini et al.

Astronomers have detected a large amount of water vapour in the protoplanetary disk around a young star. There’s at least three times as much water among the dust as there is in all of Earth’s oceans combined. And it’s not spread throughout the disk; it’s concentrated in the inner disk region.

May 17, 2023May 17, 2023 by Evan Gough

JWST Finds a Comet Still Holding Onto Water in the Main Asteroid Belt

This artist's illustration shows the rocky body of a comet with a detailed, cratered surface. Glowing rays emanate from the rocky surface like sunlight through clouds, representing water ice being vapourised by the heat of the Sun. Image Credit: NASA, ESA

Comets are instantly recognizable by their tails of gas and dust. Most comets originate in the far, frozen reaches of our Solar System, and only visit the inner Solar System occasionally. But some are in the Main Asteroid Belt, mixed in with the debris left over after the Solar System formed.

Astronomers just found water vapour coming from one of them.

“With Webb’s observations of Comet Read, we can now demonstrate that water ice from the early Solar System can be preserved in the asteroid belt.”
Michael Kelley, University of Maryland