The James Webb Space Telescope has just made its second remarkable discovery in just two weeks, and the one we are talking about is the most relevant. Researchers have used the observatory’s infrared camera to detect water vapor around a comet (in the main asteroid belt). An achievement that is not without mystery and that is of great importance for the future. Scientists believed that comets could hold ice relatively close to the Sun, something that long ago marked a turning point in their consideration as an important element in future research, but they had no solid evidence until now. The comets we are talking about were generally expected to be in the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud, both far enough from the Sun for ice to persist. But there is news in this regard with the finding. Possible paradigm shift thanks to James Webb The new information that has been known has a consequence: there is a new enigma. While carbon dioxide normally accounts for 10 percent of the potentially vaporizable material in a comet, telescope instruments did not detect any trace of it in the present comet (named Read). The research group speculates that it dissipated over billions of years, or that Read formed in a comparatively warm part of the Solar System that did not have the elements for COâ‚‚ to form. The fact is that for now nothing is known about it. Comet Read was one of the first bodies used to establish the category of main-belt comets and, to date, held some mysteries. Thanks to the James Webb telescope, which is the first equipment powerful enough to study these comets in detail, the surprise of having water vapor where previously thought not possible (for example) has been known. The work has only just begun. More observations will be needed to understand whether Read’s lack of COâ‚‚ is a fluke – or if it is shared with other main-belt comets. Whether it is or not, Stefanie Milam, who is part of the team of scientists, suggests that a sample-collection mission could be useful in learning more about comets like this one. It would certainly be more practical than other missions, since the Kuiper Belt begins roughly at the edge of Neptune’s orbit, while the Oort Cloud is about two light-years away. We’ll see what the future holds and whether this finding may have implications for the space race. >
