Water Vapor Seen 'Raining Down' On Young Star System!

Image courtesy: NASA/JPL

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected enough water vapor to fill the oceans on Earth five times inside the collapsing nest of a forming star system. Astronomers say the water vapor is pouring down from the system's natal cloud and smacking into a dusty disk where planets are thought to form.

The observations provide the first direct look at how water, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, begins to make its way into planets, possibly even rocky ones like our own.
www.jpl.nasa.gov...

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a stellar nursery called NGC 1333. Spitzer discovered that a pre-planetary disk of dust surrounding an embryonic star within this region, called NGC 1333-IRAS 4B, is drenched with water vapor.

NGC 1333 is located about 1,000 light-years away in the Perseus constellation. It is a cloud of gas and dust that is busy manufacturing new stars.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

Water vapor! Amazing! Will surprises never cease? Is this evidence of how life started on planets? Does this mean the universe is teeming with life? You bet!

As I’ve said, we are not alone!

Cheers!

Image at: www.nasa.gov...




[edit on 4-9-2007 by mikesingh]

ah, i never tire at seeing pictures of the universe, also of hearing the wonders it contains.

Just imagining a massive cloud, the size of stars, of rain.

By sheer coincidence my Music Player chose an ironic tune (it does that alot)

"There is no place i know to compare with pure imagination, living there you'll be free if you truly wish to be"

Thanks for the post! I might have missed it, but is there any mention on how far away this system is from us at the current time?

Good find, Mike! Does this confirm life elsewhere? Not exactly, but it does help to increase the possiblity. Kudos, Mike.

wow, amazing picture. Great find, flagged!

Perhaps it wont yield life right away, but knowing that water is a common element throughout the universe is fascinating.