James Webb Telescope Discovers Water on Rare Comet

Simulation of the gas stream emitted from comet 238P/Read

This is the first discovery after 15 years of effort by astronomers, and was only recently made after the James Webb telescope was deployed.

The James Webb Space Telescope detected water vapor around comet 238P/Read, suggesting that water ice may be preserved in the warmer parts of the solar system, according to a report published in the journal Nature .

Comets are found mainly in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, icy regions beyond the orbit of Neptune that may have preserved some of the material left over from the formation of the solar system. These comets travel thousands, even millions, of years to reach the Earth.

However, a rarer subgroup of comets, called main belt comets, are located in the asteroid belt region with circular orbits around the Sun.

Image of comet 238P/Read as it moves around the sun

Instead of emitting ice dust like more distant comets, main belt comets mostly shed dust as they travel. Because of their location in the warmer regions of the solar system, these comets are thought to be unable to maintain much of their water ice.

However, the new discovery provides further evidence for the hypothesis of why the Earth possessed abundant water resources in its early days. Accordingly, asteroids and comets carrying water may have crashed into the young Earth, allowing the Earth to have as much water as it does today.

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