Webb Telescope discovery shows Earth-like planets may exist

WASHINGTON: The James Webb Space Telescope has detected water in the planet-forming disk of a star called PDS 70, 400 light-years from the solar system.

According to Forbes, this could mean that rocky planets across the galaxy develop with water on their surfaces, a key ingredient to sustain life. It is in the exact region that rocky planets orbit the sun in our solar system.

The water is in the form of hot vapour measuring 330 degrees Celsius.

It is an important discovery because it suggests that rocky planets in general, including Earth, may be able to evolve with water on their surface. This contradicts the generally accepted explanation that water got to Earth by impacts of thousands of icy asteroids and comets from the outskirts.

PDS 70 is thought to host two Jupiter-sized planets that share the same orbit. While pairs of planets have been theorized before, this is the first time that any evidence has been recorded.

However, they orbit far from the region where water has been found.

This makes PDS 70 a very special star system that could change how astronomers think about the way rocky planets form and evolve.

The double planets were discovered by a group of astronomers using a massive telescope in Chile. The star system itself is a very young T Tauri star in the constellation Centaurus, located 370 light-years from Earth.

Its name stands for Pico dos Dias Survey, a survey that looked for pre-main-sequence stars based on the star’s infrared colors measured by the IRAS satellite. It was identified as a T Tauri variable star in 1992.

1 light-year = 9.461 trillion kilometres

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