Water in protoplanetary disc of PDS 70 (MIRI emission spectrum)

New measurements from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) have indicated the presence of water vapour in the inner disc of the system PDS 70, located 370 light-years away. This is the first detection of water in the terrestrial region of a disc already known to host two or more protoplanets.

This spectrum of the protoplanetary disk of PDS 70, obtained with Webb’s MIRI instrument, displays a number of emission lines from water vapour.

[Image description: The graphic shows a spectrum in the form of a graph of the Brightness of Light on the vertical y-axis versus Wavelength of Light in microns on the horizontal x-axis. The Webb data is plotted as a relatively flat, continuous white line with a series of narrow peaks. Overlaid on the white line is a blue line representing a water model. The blue line has narrow peaks that match the white ones. This shows that Webb has detected water vapour.]